Hostage
by aprilen
Summary: Alyssa Shaw a seventeen year old nurse at Dauntless headquarters. She was good friends with Eric before he chose to be in Dauntless and also Four. She knew the Eric before he was the cold hearted leader of Dauntless and she still has hopes that the Eric she knew is still in there somewhere. But before she can try to bring that out she was kidnapped.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

I take a deep breath as my mom makes sure that everything is in place, including my hair. I am wearing the usual colors for my faction, yellow and red. My faction is called Amity, we value peace and harmony. I've always been a friendly person, and my parents have always told me to be friendly, even to people who don't seem so amiable. But one thing about me is that I'm an introvert, and I love to read books. I mostly read for fun, but I also like reading the books that the English teacher forces us to read. There has been talk among the faction that my aptitude test will be Erudite.

I doubt that will happen. I don't see myself as someone who thirsts for knowledge. I just really like to read whenever I can. I don't like reading educational books for fun, that's like staying at school twenty-four seven. Who would want to be in school all day? I wouldn't.

"Are you ready?" My mother asks smiling behind me. She has a nice smile with beautiful teeth. Her eyes wrinkle whenever she smiles, but that's what makes it genuine. I smile back through the mirror and nod. Today is the day of my aptitude test. I am finally sixteen.

I remember the day my brother went for his aptitude test. He's two years older than me. He's not living with us anymore because he chose to be in the Abnegation faction. He always had a bit of selflessness in him. I've seen it. But I don't know if my parents have seen it in him.

My mother grips my hand as we walk outside to greet my father. Both of us smile as he turns and smiles at us. My dad is a tall man whose hairline is receding year by year. My father works as a manager for one of the many stores in Amity. My mother helps out whenever she can, I try to also, but my parents want me to focus on the aptitude test and to become more "amity-like".

I start walking out the door and climb onto the bus. It is already crowded with other people from the other four factions. Of course there is a sea of grey shirts and plain hairstyles are standing up. That faction is the selfless faction – Abnegation – they are always the one that gives up their seats for people. One is about to give it up for me, I was going to deny the offer but he really insisted that I sit down. I just smile and sit down next to an Erudite.

After we all reach where we are supposed to get off, I line up with my faction. I look around and see a line of grey, blue, and black and white, and also my line of red and yellow. The only faction missing is the Dauntless. Dauntless wear all black, I'm not really sure why but black is very slimming. I've always had a thirst for adventure, it seems Dauntless allows adventure more than any other faction. I guess that's why I resort to fiction books, so I can go an adventure without the danger or injuries that come from it.

I walk into the big waiting room where we are all waiting to be called in for our aptitude test. I look for the Amity table and saw all of my friends that are sitting there already. I smile and wave as I make my way.

"Hey Alyssa so glad that you can make it," My friend Devin says putting an arm around me. Amities are known for greeting each other with hugs so I wrap my arm around his waist.

"Hi Devin, glad to see that you can make it," I reply sitting down next to him.

"Are you guys nervous?" My best friend Ellen says as she fidgets with her hands. She's always been like this.

"Don't worry you'll be fine, and I'm sure no matter what you choose at the choosing ceremony your family will still love you." I say putting my hand over her fidgety sweaty ones. She smiles back up at me.

"You always know what to say," Ellen says squeezing my hand. But her smile suddenly fades. I furrow my eyebrows confused; that is until she starts rambling again, "But what about the faction before blood thing, Alyssa?" She asks as she puts her hand over her head like she has a headache.

"Ellen, do you really think your family is going to be mad that you will choose a different faction?" I ask her. She slowly shakes her head. "Exactly so stop worrying," I tell her as I put my arm around her to give her a comforting hug.

"Cheer up Ellen, this is somewhat like the last few hours we're going to be seeing each other." Devin adds. I glare at him and he gives me this, "what did I do face" as if he's innocent of not making Ellen feel worse than she already does.

Two doors open automatically and close with a hiss. I turn around to find that people from Erudite have come out to announce our names. I remember my brother telling me that they announce by last name. I'm most likely going to be one of the last people waiting because my last name is Shaw. Lucky for Ellen, she will be one of the first ones to go in. The wait might even make her more nervous than she already is.

"Now remember that you may _not_ discuss your results with anyone." The woman with short blond hair says to all of us. We already obviously know that, but apparently we need reminding. We are just humans; we most likely do need reminding.

"Everyone with last names A-F please come forward," Ellen stands up and gives me a faint smile, I smile back. She will be fine, what is she so afraid of? I don't see what's so terrifying about the aptitude test. It's not like it's really going to show how smart you actually are, it's just placing us in a faction for the rest of our lives. That's all there is to the aptitude test, I think.

The wait isn't too bad for me, but whenever I look at the Erudite table they are all panicking and opening whatever books that are nearby. I just shake my head at them. This aptitude test shouldn't be about how smart you are, unless they plan on staying Erudite. I let out a sigh as someone walks in to tell us who is going to take their test.

"Everyone with last names R-W please come forward," I stand up and line up behind my fellow Amity. We all file into a hallway that is quite narrow; it isn't wide enough for two lines. Also all the doors looked the same. I had no idea which room I am supposed to be in, but I did notice the line becoming smaller every time we passed by a door.

"Alyssa Shaw?" I turn to my right and see a man standing at the door way. He was dressed in the Erudite faction colors. The man seems to be about in his early to mid-twenties. He had a head full of blonde hair and his eyes are a nice green. He doesn't seem friendly so I try my best to smile, he doesn't smile back. "Ready for your aptitude test," he asks me as I sit down on the "dentist" chair.

"Yeah, ready." I reply as I take the vial he gives me to drink. I already know what it is, before he can even explain, I just chug down the serum. He quickly puts the electrodes onto my forehead and I slowly start to drift into the simulation.

I open my eyes and see that I am standing in a room with a two tables, one has a knife, and the other has cheese on it. "Pick one." The voice says to me I look around and see if anyone else is in the room with me, but no one is. Confused I decided to pick the knife. Then the stimulation changes to another room, but this time with a vicious dog in front of me. I drop the knife down and I slowly sit down.

A way to calm down a vicious dog is not more violence; I have to show him that I am friendly. I think to myself. Also fear isn't an option. After sitting down for a few minutes I slowly lie down onto my stomach. I hear the dog approach me slowly. I close my eyes getting ready for his big teeth to sink into my skin, but it doesn't. I feel the wetness of the dog's nose and tongue on my cheek. I smile and slowly get up so I won't startle the dog. "You aren't so bad, are you?" I say petting him. But my smile fades once I see a little girl running towards the dog, but he doesn't seem too happy about that.

I hold him by the neck and try to pin him down so he won't hurt the little girl, but he's too strong for me. He knocks me over and starts running for the girl. I get back on my feet as fast as I can and run towards the girl, I pull her behind me and watch as the dog starts running towards me instead of her. I hold on to the little girl so she doesn't run after the dog but the scene changes before the dog could even come towards us.

I look around and find that I am on a bus. There is a man sitting across from me but his face is covered by the newspaper he is reading. I look at the front cover and see a face of a familiar man. I'm not sure where I know him, but he just seems familiar. "Do you know this man?" The man behind the newspaper asks me. "Tell me if you know him, he's out to get me." He says intensely.

"Why? Why he is out to get you?" I ask him in return.

"Just tell me if you know him!" He shouts.

"Not until you tell me why this man has something against you," I reply folding my arms. I am literally shaking on the inside, but on the outside I am terrified of how this man is handling this situation.

"Tell me who he is, I know you know!" He says throwing down the newspaper.

"Sir, calm down." I say to him he grabs me and pulls me up from my seat. "Ow, you're hurting me." I say trying to free myself from his grip. I punch him in the head and he stumbles back. "I'm sorry but I don't know who that man is," I say in return as I rub my wrist. The scene turns into mist and I wake up and see the man taking the electrodes off. He opens the door and peeks outside to see if anyone is nearby, and closes it gently.

"You're not safe," He whispers to me. I furrow my eyebrows confused as to what he is saying.

"What do you mean?" I ask him. "The test, didn't it determine which faction I should be in?" I ask him. He shakes his head and I sit upright and swing my legs over so I can face him.

"The test only eliminated three out of the five factions." He says quietly. Why is he whispering? "You're Erudite and Dauntless." He adds while still whispering.

"But the test isn't it supposed to determine only one faction?" I ask in return but I'm not whispering so he puts his finger over his mouth to tell me to quiet down.

"You're," he looks around as if there is someone else in the room. "Divergent." He whispers to me.

I wake up with a start and look around to find that I am in my room in the Dauntless headquarters. I already made my choice a year ago. I can't believe I still get nightmares about that. It should have showed up in my fear landscape last year but it didn't. I was afraid of being known as a Divergent, and that I can be killed at any time and any moment.

I look at my clock on my bedside table and see that it's time to get ready to greet the new initiates. I usually wake up early to go on a run anyways. I put on my black running shoes, my black athletic top and jacket along with black athletic pants. After a few stretches I pull my hair into a ponytail and start jogging down the stairs.

After a while of jogging I hear another pair of footsteps coming from behind me. It sounds like the person is also jogging or running. I speed up as I run back up to my room. I reach my door but I still hear the footsteps. I struggle to look for my key card I usually keep it in my pocket, but where is it? I put my hands into my pocket again and find that it's there. A sense of relief filled me up. I am about to slide it but someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around to find that it was Eric.

"Were you following me the whole time?" I ask him wiping a drop of sweat that was about to fall down my cheek.

"No, I was looking for you." Eric replies in his now usual cold voice. He has changed a lot since the last time I saw him. He was just a regular Erudite boy before he came into Dauntless. I thought he was the Eric I knew when I first saw him but after seeing how he interacted with my initiate class I knew he wasn't the same person. He changed so much in a year it scared me. Or maybe this was just a different side of him that I hadn't seen before when he was still in Erudite.

"What for?" I ask him crossing my arms. I have somewhat built a wall between him and me. The Eric I see in front of me is intimidating and seems to have no feeling of love or warmth that I once saw in his eyes, but they're gone now, all I see is darkness and a chill whenever I'm with him.

"The new initiates, they're coming soon, be by the net in five minutes." He says in response, of course with his usual cold tone that he uses on everyone.

"Right, thanks, I just need to change first." I say as I turn around to open the door to my room.

"You look fine the way you are," Eric says grabbing my arm and giving it a tight squeeze.

"Ow, you're hurting me, let go!" I say wrenching my arm free from his grip. "I'm going to change." I say again and make it into my room. I sigh as I rub my wrist a bit and start making my way to my closet. I just love how colorful it is, all black. I grab a jacket a pair of pants and put on a pair of tennis shoes. I look into the only mirror I have in my room and run out to meet the initiates by the net.

"You're late," Four says as I stand next to him.

"Sorry," I reply as we wait for the first jumper to come down. I look up when I hear the sound of fabric being whipped by the wind. I see that the clothes of the person is from abnegation. Four, I and two others walk over to the net to help the girl out of the net. She grabs his hand and Four helps her down.

"Did someone push you down?" Four asks the girl. She had long blonde hair and she was about my height.

"No," The girl replies without hesitation.

"What's your name?" Four asks again. She looks like she was about to answer him but pauses.

"Tris," She finally says after thinking about her new name. I could have had a new name of my own but I like my name.

"Tris, first jumper," Four shouts to all of us, everyone claps and cheers and congratulates Tris. I was the first jumper, too. They weren't surprised like they were about Tris jumping first. She's a transfer from Abnegation so it makes sense that people would react the way they did.

"Welcome to Dauntless," I say after Four welcomed her. She smiled and nodded to acknowledge my welcome. I notice that some of the transfers are mostly from Candor and some from Erudite, and the only Abnegation transfer is Tris.

"Alright, Dauntless born go to Lauren, transfers come with Four and I." Eric says simply. I walk behind all of the initiates to make sure that they don't do anything stupid before the fighting even begins.

"Alyssa, come to the front," Eric says from the front of the line. I walk past the initiates and all of them were quite shocked that I was behind them the whole time. Well I was being quiet like most of them were. Eric put his arm around my shoulders and I feel a shiver running down my spine but I act as natural as I can. "This small girl here is the nurse that will be tending to your wounds," Eric said ruffling my hair a little. I fix my hair and move from under his arm.

"I'm not a little girl," I say putting my hands on my hips. I look at all the initiates, "And yes I will be the nurse tending to any wound you will be obtaining from initiation. If you guys have any let me know, and no lying." I say to them and looking at each and every one of their eyes. I end up staying in front in between the two boys. They never really got along so I guess I can be the neutral buffer for them.

"The first stage of training is physical, second is emotional, and third mental." Four says to the initiates. I remembered what I had to go through for the initiation. It was not something anyone would want another to go through. This faction is literally the most ruthless when it comes to initiation. All the new rules implied by Max that we learned after we jumped was not something I liked at all.

"Oh and also there will be a score board, if you aren't in the top ten by the end of training you will be factionless." Eric announces. This rule apparently was implied even before Four and Eric joined Dauntless. Some of them were looking at each other nervously. Eric doesn't seem fazed by their actions, neither does Four. Maybe it's been two years for them and for me it's only been a year since my initiation.

I manage to restrain myself to say anything to comfort the initiates in front of the two trainers. They always hated it when I said anything to comfort them. There isn't anything comforting about facing your fears at the end of this initiation. Comfort at the end of the initiation was best.

"We're going to start training with guns, first." I say to the initiates. Eric and Four look at me like I stole their spotlight or something. I just shrug my shoulders and watch as Four lines the initiates up to go out to the shooting range. They all grab a gun and start shooting at the mannequins. Some of them were doing quite well while others weren't hitting the mannequins at all. I even overhear a boy say to Tris that she should have shot the mannequin at least once by now. I couldn't help but let out a little chuckle. He was right.

After their training today it was finally time for lunch. I am starving; I didn't have time to eat breakfast after my run. Eric nearly scared the wits out of me. I know I must restrain myself from eating too big of a lunch, but I doubt I can. I am walking down the stairs to the cafeteria from my room. Then I feel the familiar chill every time Eric puts his arm around my shoulders.

"What do you think of the new initiates?" Eric whispers to my ears. It makes me shiver just feeling him so close to me. I would push him away but I might end up pushing him over the railing.

"They're okay," I say in response as I try to squirm away from his hold on me.

"Why so fidgety today?" He asks trying to keep me still.

"Eric, stop, you're making me feel uncomfortable." I reply removing his arm from my shoulders.

"Since when did _I _make you feel uncomfortable?" He asks walking backwards down the stairs. Even though he has changed I don't want him to trip and fall. I don't say anything in return not knowing really _when_ he made me feel uncomfortable. "So I don't make you feel uncomfortable," Eric says in return.

"You do, it's just I don't really remember exactly when." I say in return. I definitely stuttered because Eric let out a little chuckle like he used to whenever I did. The only thing that reminds me of the Eric I knew before he became a Dauntless leader. I always feel sliver of hope whenever he chuckles at my stuttering. After our little talk he walks off and I just continue to slowly make my way to the cafeteria.

I see him talking to Four so I decide to sit next to Zeke, who was also an initiate with Four and Eric.

"Hey Alyssa, you look a bit shaken up, what's wrong?" He asks taking a bite of his burger. I use my fork and put a patty on half of the bun. I put on the ketchup and the lettuce before putting the other half of the bun on top.

"I'm fine," I say in response to his question. I know I'm not. Eric just seems to be becoming more ruthless and cold by the second.

"No you're not," He responds while drinking his cup of water. I give in a look and he leans back and puts both of his hands up as if he's surrendering. Good, because he knows I will give him a good smack into the head if he keeps asking if I'm alright. He knows I will never tell him anything, it's not that I don't trust him it's just I rather talk to someone else about it, like my friend Ellen, but I can't. She chose to be in Amity during the choosing ceremony. She wasn't really too happy about me picking Dauntless but she managed to get over it.

After lunch was over I decided to go to the city to see if Ellen was out there. I hop onto the train and get off after a few stops. I start walking to Ellen's favorite coffee shop. I decide to wait for her there to see if she'll come. I just ask for a glass of water and I sit at a table by the window waiting.

"Are you waiting for someone?" I look up and find Devin standing by the empty chair. I smile and give him a hug without thinking. He hugs back and sits down where Ellen would be sitting.

"And yes I am waiting for someone, how are you?" I ask Devin as I take a sip of my water.

"I'm great, we miss you back in Amity," He says taking a sip of his coffee. I don't understand how he can drink something like that.

"I miss you guys, too." I reply finishing my cup of water.

"I think black suits you very well though," He adds with a wink. I just roll my eyes. He always jokes about how I look but I thank him anyways. We chat a little and I can tell that Ellen isn't coming to the coffee shop today.

"How's Ellen?" I ask him changing the subject from about me being in Dauntless.

"She's happy, she has a boyfriend now." He adds looking down at his coffee cup.

"And is that boyfriend sitting right in front of me?" I ask poking his hand. He looks up and he smiles. "Congratulations, I've been waiting for you guys to get together," I say with a huge smile on my face. "We're you supposed to meet her here today?" I ask him. He nods in response. "Well then I should get going, I have a lot of work to do." I start getting up from my chair.

"It was nice seeing you Alyssa," He says as a goodbye. I say the same and leave the coffee shop. I start walking towards the closest train station that I can find. I see it come and start jogging and grab onto the railing. I push the button to open the door and find that the compartment is dark. Strange the lights are usually on. I try to look for the light switch but I can't find it. "Who's there?" I ask feeling another presence in the same car as me.

My eyes haven't fully adjusted to the darkness of the compartment so I squint trying to see who else could be on the train with me. But before my eyes even adjust to the darkness I feel someone put a cloth over my mouth and this person's strong arm was wrapped around my waist. I start screaming and kicking trying to hurt the person who is trying to capture me and that was the last thing I remember.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

I feel something cold against my skin as I start waking up. I slowly open my eyes and a light blinds me that I have to use my arm to shield my eyes from the light source. I sit up and find that I am in a cell. I look around to find that this isn't at Dauntless headquarters. I get up from the bed that I was sleeping on and try to look for clues of what faction this place is in.

"Hello, is anyone here?" I ask walking to the bars of the cell. Why am I even here? I remember someone grabbing me from behind on the train and that's all I remember. That cloth was probably filled with a chemical that can knock anything out. I look around again to find that my cell is the only cell in this room. What is this place? And why am I the only "prisoner" here? I am about to go and sit on the bench that I slept on but then someone walks in.

"Alyssa," I turn around and see that the person has a bag over their head.

"Who are you and why did you bring me here?" I ask feeling anger boiling my blood. I am ready to fight this guy if he ever attacks me again. But his voice is disguised; I can't even tell who it belongs to. I look and see that he has the device in his right hand.

"You won't know me if you unmask me." He says calmly. I glare at him wanting to take that bag off of his head anyways. He's probably lying to me.

"At least tell me where I am," I say crossing my arms. Whoever he is shakes his head and he starts walking away. I run to the cell door and shake it to get his attention.

"You can't keep me here forever!" I shout he just continues walking. I kick the cell bars and the pain from the kick comes later. I must have bruised my toe or broke it. I take off my boot and sock to find that two of my toes were just badly bruised. _I need to control my anger better_. I think as I slowly put my sock and boot back on.

After a while of sitting and doing nothing I feel the pang of starvation. I need to find a way out of here. I start looking for anything that can pick the lock for me. I crawl on the floor looking for a bobby pin or something or a paper clip. After a while of sweeping the floor of my cell clean I realized that I have a bobby pin in my hair. It was to keep my short baby hair out of the way while I ran. I take it out and bend the bobby pin out of shape. I put the bobby pin into the key hole and start picking at the lock.

I never really learned how to pick a lock but it is worth a try. I continue trying until I hear a click. Yes, I did it! I smile as I try to open the door but it won't budge. Dang it! I need to try again. I put the bobby pin back in and start picking at it again, but then I hear footsteps coming down. I quickly hide the bobby pin in my pants pocket and just sit on the floor by the bars of the cell. I pretend that I have fallen asleep.

"Looks like she's asleep," A familiar female voice says. I try to place the voice with a face or a name but I can't.

"I guess she is," A man's voice says in return, and the man sounds like Max. No it can't be him. Even if it was him why would he want me kidnapped and put into this cell? I can't think of any reason why he would want me to be detained here.

"So is this the beginnings of our plan?" The female voice asks the man who sounds like Max.

"Yeah it is, he will do anything we say now," He says with probably an evil smile playing on his lips.

So I am being detained because of someone who will do something for them. Who could it be? Are they trying to force someone close to me to do something? They wouldn't know about my brother would they?

"Good," The familiar female voice says and she starts walking out. The man seems to be staying there and I feel his eyes boring into my face. But he also starts to follow the woman out of wherever I am. I make sure the footsteps are really faint before I open my eyes. Phew they're gone. I put my hand through the bars and find the key hole with my hand. After that I take out the bobby pin with my other hand and slowly put the bobby pin into the key hole.

I continue picking at it as many times as possible but the door still won't budge. My arms are tired and I'm starving. I get up and sit back down on the only bench that I have in the cell. I hear someone coming and I see that the person has a tray of food. I restrain myself from running to the cell door like a mad woman.

The person who has my food is someone from the Erudite faction. She's wearing the colors and she has the glasses that seem to be issued to everyone. She has a stoic expression as she slides the food under the door.

"It sounds like you need water, here." The person says pouring some water into a cup for me. She slides it under the door for me. I take it and chug the water down my throat.

"Thank you," I say, my throat feels like a sponge, absorbing as much water as it can before it goes down to my stomach. The woman doesn't smile she just walks away after giving me the food. I wonder why there aren't any guards around. The door can be opened by someone who knows how to pick locks. Maybe I'm not that valuable to them as I thought I was.

I can definitely escape out of here once I get the lock picked. I shall continue after stretching and resting for a few minutes. So I start stretching my arms and legs and jogging in place a little just to get my blood flowing. I've been sitting on the floor trying to figure out how to pick the lock.

I look down at the food in front of me. The food looks plain but it's better than not eating anything at all. I lift the tray of food up and put it on the bench. I sit down on the floor and start eating. I'm sitting at a position so that I can see who is coming and going from this place. It doesn't seem like I will be having many visitors.

After I finish the food I put the tray by the bottom of the cell door. I start doing some exercises after what seemed like an hour of letting my food digest. I even do some pushups. I need to keep myself fit; I am a Dauntless member after all. I sigh as I sit down on the bench again. I wish I had book to read to occupy the time that passes. I look at my left wrist and realize that I don't have a watch. No one has been coming around here for a while. Maybe I can try to pick the lock again.

I get up and start making my way to the cell door. I take out the bobby pin and stick into the key hole. I keep twisting and turning the bobby pin trying to unlock it. I hear a click and I push it open. I smile and nearly shout out of joy but I remind myself not to be noisy. I put my bobby pin back into my pocket and quietly got out of the cell. I close the door to make it look like someone opened it for me instead of me picking at the lock.

I take off my boots and try to walk with my bruised toes. I have to limp if my boots are off, but it's better than having my boots make noise while I'm trying to make my way out of here. I turn around a corner and hear voices in the distance. Great, where am I supposed to hide? I look around and touch the wall hoping that there will be a door somewhere. I keep looking as the voices come closer. I keep looking and finally find a door. I don't care where it goes so I open it and walk into the room. I press my ear to the door and listen for the footsteps to pass. They do so I open the door a crack. They are just turning the corner from where I came from. I put on my boots and slowly make my way out of the room.

"Where is she?!" I hear the woman shout. My heart is hammering at my chest right now. I run as fast as I can to wherever this hallway takes me to. The pain in my toes radiate to the rest of my foot. I ignore it and continue running as hard as I can. "Look for her now!" I hear the woman shout again. I muster up all my strength to keep running but I end up nearly bumping into an Erudite.

"Sorry," I pant as I continue to keep running. Once I reach the outside of the building I look up and find that I am in Erudite headquarters. _Why did they bring me here?_ I ask myself. I hear people shouting to look for me. I start running again; I start running to the closest train station. I wait for the train to come, but that is my mistake.

"Stop right there or I'll shoot," A familiar voice says, it sounds like Max's voice but it can't be. I slowly turn around and find that it is Max. He has me at gunpoint.

"You're one of my captors?" I ask trying to catch my breath. He doesn't answer but he nods for guards to take hold of me. I fight them off and Max starts shooting towards me. I take a guard and use him as a shield. The other guard grabs me by the hair and throws me to a wall. I hit it head first and I feel blood flowing down my face. I wipe it away with my jacket sleeve. He comes at me again but I move out of the way. I grab his vest and push him against the wall as hard as I can.

The guard stumbles a bit and Max also joins into the struggle. He punches me in the gut and I double over in pain. I grab his ankle and pull him from under his feet. I feel the other man lift me up with ease and put me over his shoulder. I try to kick him the face but that doesn't work. He walks as Max follows closely behind. I look at him through the blood streaming down my face. The guard throws me back into the cell and I end up slamming to the floor on my side. I let out a groan of pain as my shoulder hits the cold floor Great, I'm going to have another bruise.

"Tend to her," Max says plainly to a nurse dressed in Erudite colors. She walks into the cell and tells me to lie down. I comply and wince a little as she cleans the cut with antiseptic.

"You need stitches, hold on," She says as she numbs my forehead with something. She starts stitching the cut on my forehead. I didn't think I would need stitches. Oh well at least I'm being tended to right now.

"Do you know why I'm here?" I ask her as she cuts the thread and finish stitching me up.

"I don't know anything I'm just a nurse," The woman replies as she tells me to sit up. She starts wrapping my head.

"Why am I in Erudite headquarters?" I ask the nurse trying to find out why I am here.

"I told you, I don't know," I look into her eyes and see that she's telling the truth. I let out a sigh as she takes off my boot and I wince when she hits my bruised toe. "Bruised foot?" She asks. I shake my head and say it's my toes. She takes off my sock and touches them lightly, I wince and recoil my leg from her.

"They're badly bruised, we need to put some ice on your foot and your shoulder," She says as she takes out some gel ice packs. She wraps a small one around my bruised toes and makes a sling for my right shoulder to keep the pack on.

"Thanks," I mumble as she exits the cell. She closes the door behind her after she's done. I need to attempt another escape, but how? I think as I lie down on the bench. I should at least try to rest but I need to get out of here. I start thinking about a fairy godmother and how she can get me out of here safely. _There's no such thing_. I say to myself. I know that there is no such thing as a fairy godmother but it would be nice if they did exist. I let out a sigh as I look at the ceiling of the cell I've been in for at least a day.

The nurse comes back. She opens the door and comes in. "I came here to check on you," she says as she puts down her first aid kit on the floor. She tells me to sit up and she starts unwrapping the bandage around my head. She looks at the stitches and finds that they're healing properly. She changes the gauze and starts wrapping my head again with new bandage. I look into her first aid kit and find that there isn't anything that can knock her out without me hurting her. She takes off the ice packs which have melted causing the bench to be wet and my hair.

"The bruise looks better," The nurse says after taking the ice pack off of my toes. She dries off my toes and my bare shoulder. I put the jacket back on and my socks. I don't bother to put my boots on. I just leave them on the floor. The nurse leaves and doesn't bother to pick up the tray of food that I finished hours ago. Isn't that Erudite girl going to pick it up?

What am I going to do? If I get out of here they'll definitely notice again, and the hallway has no hiding place for me. I have to find a way to get out of here. Maybe when the Erudite girl comes I can change clothes with her, after I knock her out though. I continue planning thinking of ways to knock her out. I can punch her in the jaw or use something to knock her on the head. I wish I had that concoction that knocked me out.

"Dinner's here," The Erudite girl says. She takes the empty tray and slides it under the door.

"I really need to use the restroom is there one nearby?" I ask her. The girl looks up at me, she's scanning to see if I'm telling the truth. "I really need to go," I say crossing my legs multiple times.

"Alright hold on," she says. She walks away and she seems to be looking for someone who has the key. A guard walks in and opens the door. Just great I did not plan on this happening. The guard leads me to the bathroom; if only the guard was a female I would have a chance of fitting her clothes instead of his. The woman who brought my dinner actually left me with this guy. He nods his head to the door on his right. I mumble a thank you and open the door.

I walk to the sink and look at my reflection for the first time after the struggle to leave this place. The nurse wrapped the bandage around my head neatly and I take off my jacket to find the bruise on my shoulder is a brownish color, which means it's healing. After a while of standing in front of the sink I flush the toilet, even though I didn't use it. I begin to wash my hands while an idea pops into my head. I feel a smile stretching my dry lips.

I clutch my side and yell out in pain. The guard knocks on the door and asks if I'm okay. "No, I'm not." I say trying to sound like the pain is killing me. I hear jingling of keys and he opens the door. I drop onto my knees and exaggerate the "pain". "Please, I need to see a doctor," I say "trying" to get up from the floor. The guard holds me by the arm and lifts me up to my feet. He starts guiding me to the infirmary of the Erudite headquarters. I look around and find that most of their buildings are made of glass. I thought that was what Candor would look like since they are all about honesty and being open to one another.

"Where does it hurt?" The doctor asks me. He doesn't even question why a Dauntless is in Erudite headquarters. That's strange. They must know something, and I shall find out what it is.

"Right here," I say pointing to my upper right quadrant. He stars palpating in that area and I cringe in pain. He lifts up my shirt and finds that there isn't any bruising or anything.

"I would like you to stay overnight," The doctor says. He looks at my head injury, too. "Just in case your head injury is more serious than the nurse thought it would be," He says writing down whatever he is writing onto the piece of paper. The guard nods and walks to the door of the infirmary. He stands there. I sigh, great.

I put my head to the nice pillow and look around the infirmary. There has to be some place where they keep the clothes of their patients. I notice that most of their patients are in their gowns so there has to be storage for their clothes somewhere. _I shall look when everyone else is asleep,_ I say to myself. I keep myself up by asking the doctors and nurses if I can have a book to read. They look at me like I'm some crazy Dauntless member.

But someone hands me a book anyways and I start reading to find out that it's about the human body. I already know this stuff. I close the book and put it on the bedside table. I am in a hospital so I should expect them to have nothing but medical related books.

The nurse who tended to me earlier today came to my bed. She pretends to not recognize me, and she starts changing the dressing for my head injury. "Aren't you wondering why I'm in Erudite headquarters?" The nurse ignores my question. "Come on, there must be a billion questions running through your head." I say trying to egg her on to give me an answer.

"We trust our leader, if she says you're dangerous then you are," She says plainly. I raise my eyebrow.

"Me? Dangerous?" I ask, shocked that Jeanine Matthews finds me dangerous. First of all she's a lot taller than I am and secondly she can probably beat me up if she worked out. "How am I dangerous?" I ask the nurse. "I have a head injury because the guard managed to smack my head into a wall." I add. Apparently I am yelling and the nurse tells me to calm down.

"Well you are a lot smaller than he is," the nurse says calmly. I guess that's true. I sigh as she walks and leaves me be. The iv drip that they hooked me up to is making me feel a bit more energetic than I did earlier. They probably think I'm a bit malnourished. I have to leave tonight and run back to Dauntless headquarters. My fellow nurses at Dauntless must be worrying their heads off. Well maybe not, I'm only really close to one fellow nurse, Sam. Her full name is Samantha but she wants to be referred to as Sam. She was in the same initiate class as me, and she transferred from Erudite.

I wake up and see that it's pitch black. Perfect. I probably don't even need to change into Erudite clothing. It's already night time and it's best to wear black clothes anyways. So I decide not to change into Erudite clothing and decide to leave this place. I grab my jacket from the drawer and slip it on. I slowly slip on my boots and tiptoe away from my bed. I look to see if the guard is still there and he isn't. He must be on his bathroom break. I slowly walk out of the infirmary and make a left.

"So did you tell them about her?" The voice of Jeanine Matthews echoes through the hall.

"Yes, I told them," Max says in a solemn voice. Told them what? That I'm dead? That I'm gone from this world? I feel the anger boiling in my chest and I feel like punching Jeanine in the face. How does she have the right to declare that I am dead to _my _faction? She is so going to pay for this. I walk away from them and start running trying to look for a door. Once I find one I open it and start running towards the closest train station that I know of. Instead of looking for one I decide to climb up the foot of the railway of the train. I climb up and make my way to the top. But before I can I hear the heavy footsteps of the guards coming.

"Great, just great, how do they find out I have left so soon?" I mutter to myself. I look for the train ready for it to come at any time to rescue me from the guards. I look down and find that some of them have found where I am. I start running. I can't stay in one spot. I look over my shoulder to see that one guard has made it up. He doesn't seem to like heights so I use it to my advantage. I jump to the other side of the tracks and run from there after I am a good distance away from him I jump back to his side.

My heart is pumping and the sweat starts forming on my brow. I need to get away from them. I continue running and I hear the train coming. "Yes finally!" I say in a whisper. The train approaches the guard that has been on my tail; he grabs the handle for the first car of the train great just great. I decide to jump to the other side before the train comes too close. I run as fast as I can and jump to the other side so I can catch the other train. I'm quite disappointed that I did not see his face. I continue running along the tracks and see that more guards have made it up here.

"I see her!" One of the guards shouts to the rest of his buddies. He starts running after me causing the metal to vibrate. I almost stop but I continue anyways. I look behind me and I don't watch where I step. My foot misses the edge of the railway and I fall over. I manage to stop myself from falling by catching the edge with my left hand. I look down and it's a long way down from here. Some of the guards stop and look up to see me dangling like a little doll. I put my other hand on the edge of the rail and I manage to hoist myself up.

After that moment I see that the guard is standing right there waiting for me to come back up. "You're coming with me." He says advancing towards me.

"In your dreams," I counter and I start running again ignoring the pain that's coming from my head. I feel something warm and hot rolling down my face. I know it's not sweat, it's blood mixed with sweat. I ignore it and continue running but my vision starts to blur a little. _No I have to keep going_. I think trying to keep my vision in line. Head injuries aren't as bad as they seem, there are just a lot of blood vessels in the head. I keep running and I see a blurry figure in front of me I don't think about stopping I just keep going. I have to keep going. I need to go back to my friends and tell them that I'm okay and that I'm not dead.

I keep thinking about them and it helps but the dizziness is starting to overpower my thoughts of seeing my friends at Dauntless and my friends from Amity. I just saw Devin a day ago and I haven't seen Ellen for a while. She will be crushed if she hears the news about me being dead. It will most likely be in the papers the next day. No I have to keep trying to get out of here. I just have to.

I feel myself slowing down and the world around me is spinning. I put my hand to my forehead and I see a figure coming towards me with his/her arms stretched out. Why are they stretched out? I feel myself falling to the side and the strong arms that catch me. "Her stitches they've come undone," the guard says to another person. His voice sounds echoic and far away. I feel someone putting something on my forehead to stop the bleeding. "Alright I'm ready to come down," the echoic voice says again. I hear the whirring of something and it seems like he's using a rope to come down from the railway.

"Did she really think she could escape again with a head injury like that?" Another voice asks.

"She's determined, I'll give her that," Says another voice. Everything's echoing and sounds very distant.

"How could you leave your post?" Another voice says and my vision is still blurry but I see a blue and yellow blur yelling at a man. Why did she order people to capture me? Why am I so dangerous? I want to ask her these things but I feel too weak to ask her.

The man who has been carrying me slowly puts me onto the bed that I was probably in earlier. The doctor comes and shines a flash light into my eyes. "She'll be fine; she'll just need some sti…" The doctor's voice fades and darkness surrounds me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Eric**

"Alyssa's missing," I hear someone say to Four. I turn around and see that it's one of the Dauntless nurses. "She didn't come into work today," The girl adds. Her face is filled with worry and her hands are fidgeting with her jacket zipper.

"What do you mean she's missing I saw her earlier today." Four asks apparently concerned about his friend, well she is my friend too but she usually hangs out with either one of us never together.

"She just never came to work and her room is empty," The girl answers him. "I can't concentrate the other nurses told me to take a day off." She adds sitting down next to Four.

How can she disappear in less than an hour? She must have just gone out to the city to meet her friends. She's been doing that a lot lately. I get up from where I am sitting and start making my way to the training room to see if she's still there. She might be. I finally approach the training and room and no Alyssa. She should be coming back. She doesn't stay out in the city too long. Where can she be?

I go up to the train station to wait for her to come back. I see a train coming, and it passes me but no Alyssa. Then another train comes, still no Alyssa. None of the doors were open either. Where can she be? I continue waiting hoping that she'll come back by the fifth or sixth train, and still no Alyssa. I am about to jump on a train but I realize that I have a meeting with the other leaders of Dauntless.

I make my way to Max's room, that's where our meetings are usually held. I make my way to his room and see that everyone is already here. "Nice of you to join us, Eric," Max sounds like a teacher every time he says that. I am about to retort but I hold my tongue. I don't want to get on Max's bad side. I like being a leader of Dauntless and I don't want to lose this position.

"First of all I have some bad news." Max doesn't sound so sad about the bad news. I hope it doesn't involve Alyssa. "One of our members, she jumped." My heart stopped. No, she would not do such a thing. She's a happy go lucky kind of girl and I can't imagine her doing something like that. I have noticed before that she's good at hiding her true feelings so maybe it's not so impossible that she was depressed.

"What's her name?" I ask Max just for confirmation.

"Alyssa," He answers. "I will be announcing this to the whole faction tomorrow morning," Max says solemnly to the rest of the leaders. I look around and all of them seemed a bit saddened by the news. I don't believe she will do something like that. No one commits suicide without a note, right? Alyssa would write a note, she would if she was going to take her life. She would probably write one for her family, Four, her friends in Amity, and me. I barely pay attention throughout the rest of the meeting. I'm just thinking about all the memories I have with Alyssa.

"Eric, meeting's over," I hear Max say. I look up at him and stand up. I'm a bit taller than Max and I have a bigger build. I can beat him up if he's lying to me.

"Did you find her body?" I ask him. I will only believe that she's dead if he found her body.

"No we couldn't find it," He says putting a hand on my shoulder. I move away from him and leave his room. I'm not even hungry enough for a late dinner since I missed it earlier. I sulk into my room and just slump onto my bed. She can't be dead. No. I have to find her, but where would she be? I should go to the Amity faction and ask her friends there if they know where should would be. There has to be a spot where she goes when she's feeling a certain way.

"No weapons," That is the first thing I hear when I reach the Amity headquarters. Of course weapons won't be allowed. I take out the knives in my boots and those are the only things that I have brought with me.

After they check that I don't have any more weapons on me, they let me into the headquarters. Everything looks so happy here, a little too happy. Maybe that's why she left Amity. But then again I can see her living here and having a happy life with a family. No, I don't know if she'll like to live her for the rest of her life.

I look around the headquarters trying to find one of her friends but I don't really remember what they look like. "Eric?" A female voice says behind me. I turn around and find a girl with blonde hair, and she has some freckles on her face. "It's me, Ellen. What are you doing here?" The girl adds as she approaches me. She doesn't give me a hug. She probably knows that the Dauntless don't hug as a greeting.

"Alyssa's missing, I'm just wondering if you've seen her lately." I say to her. I don't want to beat around the bushes, that'll just waste more time, and the news would probably hurt even more if I do beat around the bushes. I see her face change from confused to worry.

"No I haven't, my boyfriend Devin saw her yesterday." She replies as calmly as she could. She starts leading me to where her boyfriend would be at this hour. I remember Devin he's a tall dark boy who also has dark hair like Alyssa, but curly. "Devin, remember Eric?" Ellen announces my presence.

"Yeah, what is he doing here?" He asks without looking our way.

"Alyssa's missing, Devin." Ellen replies in a gentle voice.

"What? I just saw her yesterday," Devin has that same worried expression on his face. He finally looks up at me and Ellen. "Did you check the city?" Devin asks me. I shake my head and try to think of where she likes to go.

"She likes to hang out at the cafe," Ellen says.

"Yeah, she does like to go there and just read," Devin adds.

"Alright, I'll check there, thanks guys," I reply and I leave before they can even say goodbye to me. I have to find her. I don't care if they want to come along, they can if they want to, but they might end up getting in my way.

I take my knives back and jump onto the train to the city. I have to find her. I don't think I can concentrate on training if I know she's missing. Four might even notice that I'm not myself. I can't show him that. I can't show him that I'm weak just because a girl is missing from our faction.

I go into multiple cafes because they weren't specific about which one she likes to go to. I keep looking and pushing people trying to see if she's there. I have already mistaken two other Dauntless girls who are her size, or about her size. She's nowhere to be found. I've looked for her in the cafes at least two times. I'm thinking about going a third time but I look at my watch and find that I should be going back to the Dauntless headquarters.

I swing myself up into the train car and realize that I should have checked the library. Even if she doesn't go there she might be there. I remember how much she loves to read. Every time we are hanging out she would tell me about a book she just read. She would go on and on about it. I found it annoying but I also liked that she found the books so fascinating. I was an Erudite after all.

Why didn't I think of going to the library earlier? I pound on the train's wall in anger. She could have been there. I'm such an idiot. She would be there. If knew her well then I would have gone there first instead of going to ask her friends. I make it back to Dauntless in time for dinner. I walk towards the cafeteria and sit by the other leaders of Dauntless.

"Where have you been?" Max asks as I sit down across from him.

"Nowhere in particular," I reply as I take a spoonful of mashed potatoes and put it on my plate.

We mostly eat in silence. I don't have anything to talk about to them. But Max asks questions about how the initiates are doing. "We started on the knife throwing, most of them can except for one." I say to Max. From what I have seen the initiates are in pretty good shape. Of course except for one.

"I hope you can deal with him." Max says before stuffing a bunch of mashed potatoes into his mouth.

"Yeah I can," I reply sounding my usual self. Or at least I tried because Max looks up at me like something's wrong. I just look back down on my plate and stuff more mashed potatoes into my mouth. After dinner everyone lines up to put their dirty dishes into the chute. Max lines up behind me.

"We need to talk," He says quietly so only I can hear him.

"About what?" I whisper back.

"You'll see," He says in somewhat of a threatening tone. Okay, what did I do now? I've been doing everything he asks of me.

"What is it?" I ask Max as we are making our way to the train station. Why are we going to the train station anyways? "Where are we going?" I ask him, but he doesn't stop walking. I decide that it's best to keep my mouth shut. We jump into the train car and I stay silent as we ride the train.

I jump off when Max jumps off and I find that we're at Erudite headquarters. I thought we weren't meeting with Jeanine until two days later. But I guess it must be an emergency meeting or whatever. We continue walking but we don't go up to Jeanine's office. We just keep walking straight on the first floor. Confused as to where we are going, I still go along with him. I have to if I intend to keep my position.

I look around and find that we are by the infirmary. Max tells a guard something and they allow us to walk in. He walks past a bed and stops and stands in front of one. I look and see a familiar hand, then the hair. I look and see the face of a sleeping Alyssa. I stand shocked looking at her. She has a bandage wrapped around her head, there's a small blood stain on the bandage. So she isn't dead? I knew it, but why is she here?

"Why is she here?" I ask pointing at the sleeping Alyssa. The color in her skin is not the flush color that I usually see.

"She's here because of you," Max says to me.

"What?" I nearly shout.

"Jeanine thinks that having someone you care about will motivate you to do what she needs us to do." Max says to me. He sounds like a school teacher scolding me.

"I have been doing everything she wants us to do!" I say through gritted teeth. "You did _not_ have to involve her in this!" I add. I walk to her bedside and hold one of her hands, they were cold instead of warm I look up at the bag of blood that was hanging next to an iv bag. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing, she tried to escape within hours of being captured, one of the guards smashed her head to a wall." He replies simply just staring down at Alyssa. "She's been like this since last night," He adds.

"We're taking her back to Dauntless when she wakes up," I say to Max. I don't care what he has to say. She doesn't need to be here.

"Not according to Jeanine, she still wants her to be here." Max responds.

"Why?" I say through gritted teeth again. The anger is boiling inside of me but I have to refrain from hitting my superior.

"She won't tell me," Max responds looking down at the floor. He seems to be a disappointed that Jeanine is withholding some information from him. Well she can't tell anyone her plans.

"Well then let's just take her back," I whisper looking at Alyssa instead of Max.

"Eric, I said we can't she has to stay," Max nearly shouts at me.

"Well I'm not accepting the fact that she has to stay without a reason," I shout back at him.

"Eric," A soft weak voice says. I turn my attention back to Alyssa.

"You're awake," I say with a smile on my face, a feeling of relief starts from my heart to the rest of me. I watch as Alyssa smiles back at me.

"What are you doing here?" She asks softly.

"Just to see how you're doing." I reply trying to keep the truth from her, but she probably already knows why she's here. She did try to escape so she must have heard something.

"But how did you know I was here?" She asks trying to sit up but I stop her from sitting up.

"You need to rest," I say gently. She lies back down.

"And Eric, if you do something rash something will happen to that poor girl," this time it's Jeanine Matthews that is talking. I let go of Alyssa's hand and turn my attention to her.

"I'm already doing everything you want us to do," I say gripping onto the bars of Alyssa's bed.

"I know, we're using her as a precaution," Jeanine says moving closer to me. She doesn't seem to be afraid of me. Sometimes I wonder if she could be a Dauntless born, but nope, she is an Erudite born.

"What kind of precaution?" I ask forgetting that Max is right there and that Alyssa is hearing all of this.

"Just in case you decide to recede from the plan," She sounds threatening but she isn't scaring me with her threats. I just have to make sure that Alyssa will be safe and that she will not be harmed. "Because if you do, she will be punished." I feel my hands forming fists. I am ready to punch her right now. She walks away satisfied with the result of what she has said to me. I look at Max, amazed that he would betray me like this.

"You were one of her captors, weren't you?" I see Alyssa look at Max who is still at the foot of her bed. I see the hatred and a flicker of fear in her. So he was her captor.

"I'm sorry I was just following orders." He says in return. I'm too angry to look at him. I have this new feeling of hate for him. I have to make sure that she will be safe no matter what happens. I have still yet to inject every initiate with the "tracking device" I will still do it, even if Alyssa was here or not. I even remember injecting it into Alyssa's neck after she finished her training.

After Max walks out from the infirmary I draw the curtain and whisper something to Alyssa, "Stay strong, I'll come for you when I can," I say. I don't draw the curtains back as I know she needs to sleep. I walk out and follow Max out of the Erudite headquarters. I still can't believe that he was one of her captors. His only excuse is that he was following orders.

"Eric, I didn't want to but I had to." He says looking into my eyes, his eyes as cold as mine.

"Whatever," I say looking back into his eyes. He moves away from me and stands on the other side of the train. After a couple of minutes we jump off and walk back to our own rooms for the night. I need to find a way to get her out of the Erudite headquarters, but how?

The next morning I wake up and it's the day for Capture the flag. The initiate that was knocked out by Peter is apparently still in the infirmary, and she hasn't woken up yet. "Tris is out," I say after looking at the leader board. She was not one of the top ten. She will be factionless from now on. I look at the initiates faces, Peter is smirking along with Molly and Drew, but Al, Christina, and Will don't seem too happy about their new friend being factionless.

I can care less about what they think. Rules are rules, and I have to keep them or else Alyssa might be hurt again, even if she doesn't try to escape. I start formulating a plan to get her out of there, not really paying attention to the initiates. Four is doing all the work, and he can if he wants to.

After the training it was time for lunch. I walk into the cafeteria but someone stops me.

"I know you hate me and I hate you, but something's wrong," Four says before I even turn around.

"Nothing's wrong, Four." I say without turning around to him.

"Look, I know Alyssa and you were good friends, she was a friend of mine, too." Four says as if she's already dead, but she isn't. I want to scream it and tell everyone that she's still alive but that might endanger her safety. Max told the whole faction that she had "passed" and they celebrated her life right then and there. I didn't want to be there for that, because I know she isn't dead, at least not yet anyway. "That doesn't mean you don't do your job." Four adds before I hear him walking away.

"She's not dead," I whisper. Four manages to hear it.

"What are you talking about?" He asks I finally turn around and see that he has stopped walking.

"I saw her last night, she's injured, but she'll live." I say to him quietly. I can't let Max know that Four also knows that she's alive. I can see Four trying to think how this is possible. Then his eyes light up as if he finally understands what's going on.

"I have to tell Sam," Four says almost running to the infirmary of our headquarters.

"No, no one else can know," I say stopping him. Sure we are enemies but Alyssa is good friends with both of us. We care about her, or at least Four shows more concern about her than I do.

"Why not?" Four asks crossing his arms.

"I can't tell you," I say in response to his question. I start walking away and Four doesn't even bother to stop me. He knows I won't tell him even if I wanted to. I can't tell him what I know or else Alyssa probably will not be getting treatment for her head injury. If she has an infection and dies of some disease I can never forgive myself. I also need to stay on Jeanine's and Max's good side in order to survive this oncoming "war".

I need to find more Divergents. That's what Jeanine wants me to do really. She wants me to find out if anyone is Divergent in our faction. I don't remember Alyssa being Divergent. Maybe she is really just a incentive to get me to not recede from the plan. I already agree with her that Divergents are dangerous to the system. What more does she want from me?

I run my hand through my hair and let out a frustrated sigh. I don't even know if I should ask her. If she won't tell Max what would she tell me? I slam my fist onto the table in my room. Why did they have to involve her in this? I have to take her out of that place and somewhere where they won't find out where she is. There have to be hide-outs for people. I need to go to Max. He might have the footage of her fear landscape. I need to ask him for that footage. Maybe even the practice rounds before actually entering her fear landscape.

I knock on Max's door. I wait a while before he opens it. He looks like he has been sleeping, "Eric? What are you doing here? It's two in the morning," He says rubbing his eyes. I didn't even realize that it was that "late". I guess I was too absorbed with finding out a way to keep Alyssa safe without jeopardizing my "relationship" with Max and Jeanine.

"Sorry, I was just wondering if you still have footage of previous initiates'?" I ask him hoping he does.

"Why do you want that?" He asks. He has a suspicious look on his face. "They're in my office, here." He says handing me the keys. He insists I take it. "I'm sure it's for something important," He says before closing the door. I stand there in front of his room door staring at the keys he just handed to me. This is too easy. I can just say it is to find out who is Divergent. That is part of the truth, and why am I concerned about telling the truth? I'm not a Candor. I shake my head lightly and started making my way to his office.

I open the door and start looking for the footage on Alyssa's initiate class. It took me awhile to find the disc but I managed to find it. A smile crept on my face and put into the computer. I looked for Alyssa's footage and watched as she went through her fear landscape. I saw it a year ago, but I don't really remember seeing any signs of her being divergent.

The first fear that shows up are spiders. She's in a baseball field and the spiders started crawling to the field from the stands. The fear in her face is obvious and she's frozen for a bit. She doesn't know what to do when the first group of spiders finally reach her. She looks around her surroundings and finds that she's in a baseball field. Her eyes light up and starts running to a dugout. She looks desperately for a bat. Once she finally finds one it's full of spiders. She drops the bat. She starts looking for another and finds one without spiders. She's about to run out but the exit from the dug out is blocked by the spiders. She starts swinging the bat at the spiders and manages to crush one, then another. She runs out of the dug out and crushes even more spiders. I smile, she conquered that fear.

The fear landscape changes into a podium and a number of people facing her. I see Alyssa swallow and tap the mic nervously to see if it is on. Public speaking. Then she does something that I clearly remember from that time she faced the fear landscapes. She picks up the mic and starts singing the words on the page that were just scribbles earlier.

The room suddenly changes into a room and she's tied to a chair. She looks up and finds a clown with creepy make-up on. The clown taunts her as she screams at the top of her lungs, the clown continues to taunt her and poke fun at her. She tries to get away from the clown but that doesn't work. I have never seen her this terrified before. She takes a deep breath and looks down at her legs. She notices that they aren't tied to the leg of the chairs. Once clown is in front of her again she takes up the courage to kick the clown's legs. But this agitates the clown even more. She turns away, and kicks him over and over. She keeps her head turned and eyes closed and the room changes into an ocean.

Alyssa has her eyes open and she finds that she's sinking. There's a heavy weight tied to her feet. She struggles and tries to swim back up to the surface but she can't, the weight is stronger than her. It doesn't take long for her to reach the bottom. She's already struggling to hold her breath. She starts looking for something in the sand. She finds something sharp and she cuts the rope as quickly as she can. Once she was free she opened her mouth and she realized her mistake. She covered her mouth and started swimming up to the surface. She comes up coughing the water she swallowed. She treads the water for a while until the simulation changes again.

The water drains and she finds that she's in a dark room and the only source of light is the bulb over her head. She says, "Hello is anyone there?" Then the light goes out. I can't see anything except hear her calling out to whoever is there. Then I hear her screaming and her screams being muffled. Fear of being kidnapped, and it happened. I clench my fist and listen as she struggles to fight off her captor. I hear the captor grunt from pain as she continues to hit him and eventually knock him out. The light turns back on and she stands victorious.

The room changes again and she finds her family bags are packed. "We're leaving you here," The voice of her mother says harshly. I see the tears welling up in Alyssa's eyes. She watches as her family leaves her in the house. She runs out and watch as they walk away from her. She starts running after them but every time she gets close her family moves further away from her. She sinks to her knees and cries. Then thinking about something she runs back into the house and finds a picture of her and her family. Two men and her mother hugging and laughing. She smiles and hugs it to her chest. Just because her family abandoned her doesn't mean that they were never a family. _Good thinking, Alyssa_. I think to myself.

After that the environment around her changes again, and we are at the Dauntless headquarters. Her family is standing in front of her, she's about to go run and hug them but the blood of her father splatters onto her. She watches in horror as her father collapses to the ground, dead. I remember this, I was the one who shot her dad in this simulation. She stares at me in absolute horror and tears are welling up in her eyes again. I just give her a cold stare and point the gun to her mother's head. She shakes her head violently and yells at me to not do it, but I pull the trigger anyway. After I killed her mother she's crying and screaming for me to stop then Four comes in with a gun in hand. He taps the crying and screaming Alyssa. She turns around and look up at him. He gestures towards the gun. She shakes her head, not wanting to kill me. Four nods his head towards me and her last surviving family member. I have her brother at gunpoint and I cock the bullet into place. She grabs the gun without thinking, turns her head and shoots me.

The simulation changes and she's somewhere in the city. She sees corpses everywhere and she's the only one alive. She's trying to find someone to talk to. The fear of being alone. I remember this, she goes and finds an inanimate object and draws a face on it, and another and another. And she ends up making herself a group of friends. After that the simulation changes again. This is her last fear. Only eight fears is pretty impressive. Her last fear is watching her family die while she can't do anything at all. She's trapped in a cage and she can't leave, she can't go to her family and prevent them from dying. She watches them suffer and die in front of her eyes. She just turns away and tries to calm herself down, and when she does the simulation ends.

I was surprised that I was in her fear landscape. That was my first time learning that she was afraid of me turning into a monster. I take the disc out and put it back where it belongs. I run through her fear landscapes in my head. She didn't show any divergence or acknowledgement that she's aware that the simulation isn't real. Either she is divergent and is a really good actress. She is good at hiding her true feelings, so it shouldn't be so hard to make herself belief that all of the simulations were real.

"Eric, wake up," I hear Max say. I rub my eyes and find that I'm still in the office.

"Sorry, I must have stayed here all night," I say getting up and offering his chair to him. He nods and sits down.

"Well now that you're awake go train the initiates," Max says waking his computer up from sleep mode. I nod and walk out of his office and make my way to where the initiates will be waiting.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Alyssa**

I have been in the hospital for two days now. The doctor wants to make sure that I won't have any seizures because of my head injury. I told him that I'm a nurse at Dauntless and that I can take care of myself. But he insisted that I stay in the hospital. I hate not being able to do anything. I need to go on a run but the doctor doesn't want me to do anything until my blood volume has gone up. It only takes forty eight hours for the blood volume to go back to normal, but he said that I lost too much blood.

I put my head onto the pillow and let out a sigh. They have moved me to my own room, after Eric's visit. Apparently they don't want me to have visitors. They might as well just put me back in that cell. I look at the iv that is dripping into the tube that is stuck to my arm. I hear the machine beeping, measuring every heartbeat.

I pull the covers away from me and swing one leg at a time on the right side of the bed. I feel the coldness of the tiled floors on my feet and start trying to look for slippers. I am about to bed down to see if any slippers are under the bed but the tube that attaches me to the iv stops me.

"Argh!" I say as I walk around the bed and bring the iv long with me. I keep scouring my room for a pair of slippers and I find nothing. I walk towards the door and I pull the door knob down to find it locked on the outside. I actually need to use the restroom and they have the door locked. That's just wonderful. I knock on the door trying to get someone's attention. "Hello!" I am slamming my hand to the door now.

"What is it?" A voice asks. I stop slamming my hand on the door. The palm of my hand is probably beet red from slapping the door so many times.

"I really need to go use the bathroom." I say through the door. I hear the jingling of keys and the key going into the key hole, and the click of the lock. I step back just in case the door opens inside, and it does.

"Do you really need to go to the bathroom?" The man asks, and I recognize that he's the guard who had been fooled by me before. I give him a smile and nod. He gives me a suspicious look.

"I really do need to go," I say to him.

"Alright," He says and I follow him to the bathroom that's closest to my room. He unlocks the door for me and I walk in. He closes it and locks the door on the outside. I shake my head. That guard has some trust issues. Yeah, I did lie to him like three to four days ago, but he needs to get over it if he's going to be my guard while I'm stuck in the Erudite headquarters.

After using the restroom I flush the toilet and start washing my hands. I look up at the mirror and notice the stitches are fading away. I guess I'll have a small scar on my head, depending on how well the doctor stitched me up. I don't mind having scars, I already have some from being in the faction where violence is the way to solve things.

I knock on the door and the guard opens it up for me. "Thanks," I say as I drag the pole with the iv bag along with me. "Do you really need a gun? No one comes in here," I ask the guard. I look up at him and he's just looking straight ahead. He's like a head taller than I am, like most guys are. I am only five feet and two inches.

"It's just a precaution," He says with a simple shrug.

"A precaution for what, rats?" I ask. I have seen a couple of rats running around. Every time I hear those little nails hitting the floor a shiver runs down my spine. I have never liked that sound.

"You're asking a lot of questions for a Dauntless," He says in return.

"But how do you know if I'm not Erudite born?" I counter trying to make myself taller. He looked down at me and a smile showed up on his face. What? Did he find it funny that I'm trying to make myself taller? "What are you smiling about?" I ask him, after I stop walking on the balls of my feet.

"Nothing, we're here." He responds. He takes out the keys to open the room to my door. I walk in and walk to the window. I hear him close the door and lock it. I'm stuck in here with no good books to read. I might as well just stare out the window and see what's going on in the outside world. I watch as the trains go by and remember how I always used to pull myself onto a moving train. I wonder if I will ever be able to do that again once I am out of here. The doctor said I shouldn't overexert myself if I want to get out of this hospital. Even if I do, I will be in a cell anyways.

I let out a sigh and decide to climb back onto my bed. I wonder if I should try to escape at least one more time, but Eric told me to stay, and he says he'll come for me. I heard everything that Jeanine and he discussed. It did not occur to me that he was working for her. I know that they were keeping me because of someone, but I had no idea I was being detained for Eric's sake, it didn't even occur to me.

I wonder how my parents, my brother, and my friends are doing with the knowledge that I am not a part of this world anymore. I feel a tightening in my chest. They think I'm dead. I try to swallow but I can't. I feel like there is something lodged in my throat. I take a shaky breath trying to keep the tears stinging my eyes. I'll be fine, I think as I feel a tear roll down to the pillow. I take another breath in and try to stop the tears from rolling down. But another tear rolls down. I close my eyes and cover them with my arm.

I let out a sob and continue crying my eyes out. The pain in my chest isn't ceasing at all, I feel like I can't breathe. I hear the machine beeping, warning whoever is nearby that I'm not taking in enough oxygen. I hear footsteps running towards my room. The guard opens the door. I don't move my arm from my face.

"What's wrong?" He asks actually sounding concerned for my life. I shake my head and shoo him with my free hand. "I'm going to get the doctor." He says. I move my arm and sit up.

"No! I don't need a doctor!" I say taking the iv out of my arm. The tears continue rolling down and the crying takes me over again. I bring my knees to my chest and put my forehead to my knees. I feel the guard sit down on my bed. I feel him put a hand on one of my shoulders. "Don't try to comfort me," I say removing his hand violently. "You and other people have kept me here detained, and for what?!" I scream at him. He doesn't move, he just sits there looking at the ground.

"I wish I could tell you," He says softly.

"Then why don't you?" I snarl back.

"Because I don't know anything, okay?" He responds looking back at me.

"What is going on in here?" I hear another voice say. I wipe the remaining tears and turn around to see the doctor who has been taking care of me at the door. The machine stopped beeping for at least a few minutes. His eyes trail to the iv drip's tube and he sees that it's on the ground. "We'll have to get you another one," He says taking the old one off of the hook on the pole.

"I don't need an iv drip, what I need is a proper meal, and exercise," I say as calmly as I can.

"I'm the doctor I tell you what you need." He says.

"I'm a person, not just a random patient." I say, nearly shouting again. I hear my heartbeat rising from the machine.

"Alright, I'll run it by Jeanine," He says calmly as he walks out of the room. He leaves the door open. I let out a sigh and lie down. I pull the covers up to my shoulders and turn away from the guard who was sitting there since I stopped crying my eyes out.

"You miss your family, don't you?" He asks, trying to comfort me again.

"That's none of your business, leave, please." I say in a whisper, and surprisingly he hears me. I feel him get off of my bed and see him walking out of my room. He turns to look at me and closes the door behind him.

"Why did I cry so hard?" I ask myself. I usually don't cry this hard regardless if I am thinking about my family. I look up at the hook that held my iv bag up. What is in that bag anyways? There must be something that's causing me to feel so emotional. There has to be something in that iv bag besides electrolytes and such to keep my body nourished. Is it even really keeping my body nourished? I look down at my nails and see that they don't look that well.

I touch my hair, and all I feel is the oiliness from not washing it for a while. I need a mirror to see how healthy my hair looks. I look down at my skin, and it seems paler than ever. That iv drip isn't helping me at all. What is actually in that bag? I saw myself in the mirror but I don't remember my skin being this pale. Are they trying to keep me in bedridden?

I get up from the bed and take off the electrodes that are attached to the machines. They start beeping wildly. I hear footsteps running towards my room again. I stand by the doorway and lean against the wall, so that whoever opens the door won't be able to see me. They might think that I have escaped, perfect. This can be a distraction for them as I make my descent through the window with the sheets. I just hope I have enough sheets to make the "rope" long enough.

"That girl, where is she?" I hear the guard ask himself. He walks out and closes the door behind him. I crawl to the door and check to see if the handle is locked and it is. After that I start taking the sheets off and open the door to find more sheets. I walk to the window and see that I'm probably on the highest floor of the building, great… just great. I start tying the sheets together and making sure that the knots are tight enough. I open the window and feel the wind brush my face. I zip up my jacket and tie my hair into a ponytail. I look for my boots and find them under my bed. I quickly put them on.

"The door is locked on the outside, she couldn't have escaped," I hear a voice. Dang it! I hide my tied sheets in the closet along with my jacket. I close the window, untie my hair and put my boots where they belong. I decide to sit by the window, also somewhere where they can't see me right away. I hear the click of the door being unlocked.

"I told you she's not in here," The voice of the guard echoes in to the room.

"There's something called actually coming in and looking," The doctors annoyed voice trickles in as he comes into the room. "You've been sitting by the window the whole time?" The doctor asks crossing his arms. I look away from the window and turn to face him.

"Yeah I have, the view from up here is beautiful." I say with the best smile that I can muster. I gesture for him to come closer. I lean towards his ear and whisper, "What is in that iv bag?" He retreats away from me a bit too quickly. He's acting suspicious.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He says trying to straighten his tie.

"You do know what I'm talking about." I say to him. My voice sounds a bit hoarse. I didn't even know that I was feeling thirsty. I cough a little trying to get some moisture for my throat, but it doesn't work. The doctor tightens his tie again and clears his throat.

"I will tell the nurse to bring you a glass of water." He says loudly so that the guard also hears what he says to me. I try to get up from my sitting position but my legs are too weak from staying in bed for so long. I sit back down and try to control the spinning of the room. I shake my head a little trying to make the sudden vertigo go away. I hear the door close and the lock click. I can get my own cup of water, if only I am not feeling so weak right now. How am I supposed to escape without some source of energy? I know my body will resort to muscles if I don't have any more fat to spare. I need some food, some other source of energy for my body to burn. I walk to the door as best as I can and knock waiting for an answer.

"What is it?" The voice of the guard comes through the door.

"I would like something to eat, some bread would be nice." I say barely above a whisper. The guard takes out his keys and opens the door.

"I didn't hear you say anything," He says standing by the door.

"I said it would be nice if I have something to eat." I say again. The guard nods and starts making his way to wherever he grabs the food. I wait patiently sitting on the bed again. I don't bother hooking the machines to myself anymore. The beeping noise is starting to annoy me so I unplug the machines from the outlets. The nurse comes and she has more than just a cup of water. She has some bread and a bit of meat on the side. My mouth starts watering as I see the meal she has for me.

"Thank you," I say as she puts the food on the table that she pulls out for me. She nods and smiles at me. I start by drinking the water as she walks out of the room. After that I take the bread and start eating it like I haven't eaten in years. I slow down a bit as I take a bite from the delicious meat. I have eaten but just small meals but this is more than what I have been given. After eating everything I lean back on my bed. The meal tasted so good and I really wanted to eat more but I'm not sure if I can ask for more food. I wipe my mouth with the napkin that the nurse provided for me.

I'm not really sure where to put the tray of food but I leave it on the table that I used to eat the food. I sit down and let my food digest. I have tried to run around and do whatever I wanted after eating and the feeling was horrible. Of course my parents scolded me but they always had a happy face while they did, so I didn't know if it was really right or wrong of me to do so. I slowly learned on my own as a child and stopped running around right after I eat.

I start planning my escape as I sit on my bed. I am still planning to use crawl out through the window with the sheets as my rope as I climb down the building. After that I will find the train station and ride it to the end of the line. I will end up at the fence, and I have no idea what is out there. I know I can't go back home. Everyone thinks I'm dead. I can't go into Abnegation; they'll most likely send me back to where I came from. I can't go there, because they will find them there for sure. I don't really have a place to go. Telling the whole city of my death was a part of their plan. If I try to escape I will have nowhere to go but to the factionless. I really don't want to be among the facitonless, they are pretty cruel.

I shake my head just thinking about all these details is giving me a headache. I let out a sigh as I wait for the sun to set and the sky to darken. That is the best time to start my escape. Yeah I have been caught before but I think I can actually do this. I just have to make sure that no one will see me. I even have a mask to hide my face. I've been making it while I have been in the hospital, which was the only thing that kept me sane really. This is definitely going to work.

Finally night has fallen. No one has visited me or plugged me to the machines again. The doctor didn't even come back in to give a new iv drip. Good, I feel my strength coming back. I make sure that every light in the building is off, so no one sees me making my descent. I can tell that I am still in Erudite headquarters. I smile as I see that no lights are on. It seems that everyone sleeps pretty early here in Erudite, unlike the Dauntless. I make my way to the closet and drag the tied sheets to the window. I tie it securely to the bed. I rolled it to the window. After that I drop the rest of the sheets over to the window. I look down and see it only makes it halfway. I can make a parachute out of the last sheet I am about to go reach, yes that works.

After putting on my jacket, boots, and putting my hair up into a ponytail I start making my descent. I put one leg at a time out of the window. I grab hold of the sheets, lean back, and use my feet against the side of the building. I make sure not to step too hard or I'll puncture the fragile glass. I continue down until I reach the last sheet at the bottom of the "rope". I keep hold on the sheet and start untying it with my other hand. I must have been nervous from the beginning because my hands are wet from sweat. I can't seem to untie the sheet from the others. I start looking for something in my boot, a knife or anything sharp, but nothing. Dang it! I should have brought weapons with me when I went to meet with Ellen.

I start fumbling with the knot again and it finally comes loose. I lose my footing and I let myself fall for a bit, and then make a parachute out of the last sheet. I make it to the bottom safely. I feel a smile tugging at my lips as I continue to run and make my way to the train station. I climb up to the top of the railway. I look around trying to find a train that's coming and I see one on its way. This time luck is apparently on my side.

I grab the pole on the outside of the train and pull myself up. I apparently haven't lost any of my strength. I press the button so the doors open and thankfully the lights are on. I pull the mask off and I feel like I can breathe again. "Who is this girl?" I hear someone say. I look up and see that there is a familiar looking boy with an eye patch. He has a tall build and he has blonde hair. Then there's a girl next to him, and it seems like she is the one who says it. I look at their clothes and see that they are wearing all the colors of the different factions. Oh no, I'm caught by the factionless.

"Isn't she the Alyssa girl that Eric called 'little'?" The boy with the eye patch said. His eyes well eye seems to recognize who I am. I'm surprised he remembered my name, well maybe because I'm just one person, and there are numerous initiates. It's not like I was introduced to all of them properly.

"I thought she's dead." The girl says, and she walks up to me. I move away until I hit the wall of the train car we're in. "She's from Dauntless but she doesn't seem like she's fearless." The girl says looking me up and down like I'm just a piece of something in their games.

"They only said that because they were keeping me detained," I say in reply. I stand my ground.

"Who's they?" The boy with the eye patch asks in return.

"Jeanine Matthews and her Erudite minions." I reply with the venom. I hate her and I hate that she has me detained because of Eric. I know Eric's a good person, deep deep down somewhere. But what caused him to work for Jeanine Matthews.

"Interesting," The boy says again, dragging out the word. I furrow my brows confused as to why he would say it that way. I try to scrutinize his face and I can see that he knows something. "You're coming with us," He says grabbing onto my arm.

"No, I'm going to the end of the line, let me go." I say removing his hand from my arm.

"Just come with us, you don't have to stay." He says.

"Why should I trust you?" I ask crossing my arms and giving him a suspicious look.

"You have no reason to, just trust your instincts." He says with a smile. He jumps off along with the girl. I think about it for a second and jump off after them. I find that we are pretty close to the end of the line.

"It looks like she's going to come with us." The girl says looking back at me. She even has a smile of her own on her lips. I follow them from a distance. I keep my eyes on those two while I try not to trip over my own two feet. After all that exertion I feel a bit dizzy. I follow them until we finally reach the destination they want me to be at. I look for something, anything that seems familiar but all I see is tall grass that surrounds us.

"Where are we?" I ask the two of them. They don't answer and just head towards the fire that's burning in the distance. We continue walking closer to the fire and I see that people are surrounding it. The boy leads me towards a woman. She looks somewhat familiar and I see that she resembles someone. I look at her closely and see that she's Tobias' mother. No way, that can't be. I am definitely seeing things. She's dead. I remember hearing about her death and about how her funeral went.

"You can't be who I think you are." I say breathlessly. The woman looks up at me and smiles.

"And who do you think I am," She says with a questioning look.

"Evelyn Eaton, Tobais' mother?" I say in a question. I did not mean for it to come out as a question. I know for sure that she's Tobias' mother. He inherited her eyes.

"Yes, but it's Evelyn Johnson, now." She says standing up from her sitting position. She's also wearing the different colors of the factions. So she's been factionless this whole time, why show up now? "You don't have anywhere to go, do you?" She asks putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"Who says that I don't?" I say backing away from her. I don't trust this woman; something about her just casts a bad vibe. Sure she is or was Tobias' mother. I don't know if I should go back to Dauntless and tell Tobias that his mother is alive. I back away from the group.

"Where do you think you're going?" A ruff voice asks me. I turn around and find that a factionless man is standing behind me preventing me from leaving the group. I push him out of the way and start running towards the railways that aren't too far from here. I push away the tall grass and make my way to the railway. I look behind me to find the others are following me. No, they aren't taking me. I try to muster up some strength but I can't seem to run any faster.

Why do they want me? I am no one special I am just a regular girl who ended up in Dauntless, and kidnapped by Jeanine Matthews' goons. I just need to find a new home a new freedom without being kidnapped or detained by anyone.

I continue running until I reach the railway. I see that no train is coming, but there is train that is going back to the city. I look behind me and this train is my best chance, even if I do have to go back. I just need to find a place to stay in the city, somewhere where they can't find me. I jump onto the train and go in. The factionless are running with the train. I close the train doors and sit there hoping that none of them make it onto the train.

Why do they want me? Do they need more people who hate Jeanine Matthews? I'm sure a lot of people do, they just don't say it. I hear the door open and the moonlight floods into the dark train car. Someone turns it on and I see that it's the boy with the eye patch. "What do you want from me?" I ask standing up and getting ready to fight.

"We just need more people on our side." He shouts so that the wind will not drown him out.

"I don't like Jeanine, but I also don't like Evelyn," I shout over the wind. He looks back at me shocked. It's like I have to choose one or the other. "What I can't like them both?" I ask shrugging my shoulders.

"I guess you're just one of those people who are neutral." He says shrugging his own shoulders. "I'll just tell them that," He adds as he jumps off of the train. I watch as he runs back to the rest of the group. I can feel their daggers staring back at me. I move from the doorway and sit back down. I ride the train until I reach the rooftop where the Dauntless initiates jump off.

I jump and make it onto the rooftop. I jump down from the roof to the hole that has a net. I make it down and after I stop bouncing I roll off from the net. I hit the ground and my elbow is definitely going to be bruised. I run and make my way to Eric's bedroom. I pound on his door, hoping that no one has seen me come back. I pound on it harder but the sound of foosteps stop me from pounding the door. I put my mask back on and move the darkest corner that I can find.

I watch the person and see that it's Tobias. My eyes widen, I reach out to him and he knocks my hand away. I pull my mask off and he relaxes when he sees me. He pulls me into a one of his brotherly hugs and I hug him back.

"How did you manage to get back here?" He asks.

"I just escaped through a window, I know it's not wise to come back here but I didn't really know where else to go." I tell him.

"I know, I'll keep you safe," He says. I nod. He breaks the hug and starts guiding me to his bedroom. He makes sure that no one has followed us and he opens the door to his bedroom. He allows me to sleep on his bed and that he will sleep on the floor. I feel so bad but he insisted.

"Thank you," I say and he just smiles as a response. I finally made it out of that hospital and I am here, but I know I'm not safe here. I need to find a different place to stay after I stay here for a day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note:** I am sorry for the one day delay, I tried to finish it last night but I wanted the chapter to be good for you, my lovely readers =) Thank you for your patience. I will most likely post on Tuesdays now, because I have a lot more time on Tuesdays more than Mondays.

**Chapter 5**

**Alyssa**

I wake up to find that I'm on a comfy bed this time, but it smelled like someone slept on it besides me. I take another sniff just to make sure that I'm in the right place or I am where I'm supposed to be. I open my eyes and find that I'm not in the hospital anymore. I look around and I know it's not my room at the Dauntless headquarters. I look around and see someone lying on the floor. My heart nearly stops thinking that it's a corpse but I see his chest rising and falling. My muscles relax. I lean over the edge of the bed more and see that the person is Tobias.

I remember escaping from the hospital and such, now my muscles are tensing up again. I need to get out of here before Tobias gets hurt along with other Dauntless members. I know they can handle themselves but everyone has their weaknesses and everyone still has their fears. I have to get out of here. I jump out of bed and try not to wake Tobias up. I put on my boots and slip on my jacket. I tie my long black hair up into a bun and pull a military cap on. The bill of the cap can cover my eyes.

I leave a note for Tobias and start walking out of his room. I close the door gently behind me and look around to see if anyone is looking for me. I keep my head low and start making my way down the stairs. I walk myself past the training room and to the train station out by the tunnel. I need to take the train to the end of the line, and hopefully I won't bump into any factionless on my way out.

I continue walking with no interruptions for a while until I start hearing footsteps behind me. I don't look over my shoulder I just continue walking to the train station. Maybe this person is just going to the train station also. I keep listening and the footsteps aren't too far behind me. I pick up my pace, and so does the other person. My heart is beating like mad and my palms feel a bit sweaty I don't even notice that I start jogging, and so does the other person.

I finally turn around and look up to find that it is Eric who has been behind me the whole time. "I thought I saw you," He says approaching me. I move back. This new feeling when I see him, it's somewhat familiar, of course it's familiar, it's fear. He is in my fear landscape and he probably still is.

Apparently Eric senses my fear and steps back giving me space. "What's wrong, you were never this scared of me." He asks keeping his hands at his side.

"I heard everything," I say with a shaky voice. I'm not feeling cold. I clear my throat trying to compose myself.

"I know and it sounds bad, but it's not." He says moving one step closer, I move one step further.

"How is it not bad, if it sounds bad?" I ask sounding like a Candor.

"I'm trying to preserve the faction system," He says with a voice that doesn't seem to belong to him. I furrow my brows confused. What's going on? His voice sounds like someone is speaking for him, or someone is _in_ him. This has to be a dream. Wake up, Alyssa, wake up!

I sit up with a start and I feel sweat rolling down my face. "Alyssa, you alright?" Tobias says sitting on the bed. He wipes some of the sweat away from my forehead.

"Yeah, just a bad nightmare," I reply gently moving his hand away. "I can take care of myself, thanks." I add wiping away some of the sweat on his blankets.

"Hey, you'll need to wash those," Tobias says in a joking manner. I smile. I realized that I haven't smiled in a long time. My muscles feel weird when the corners of my lips go up, instead of being in a straight line like it usually is. "Let's get ready for breakfast." He says causally. He starts to get up from the bed but I hold on to his arm.

"I can't go out there, they all think I'm dead, remember?" I ask him.

"Oh, right, sorry." He says sitting back down.

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't have breakfast, and you need to train the initiates, so you need your energy." I say pushing him off of his own bed. I miss hanging out with him. I can tell that he's doing well, and there's just something different about him. He chuckles and makes his way down.

"You'll be fine, alone?" He asks before walking to the door.

"Yes, I'll be fine," I say shooing him away. He smiles and walks out of the door. Once I hear the click of the door locking I get out of the bed and just start exercising a bit. I haven't done any exercise lately. I am most likely really out of shape; if I go run I would probably stop after a couple of laps and call it quits.

After a couple of simple exercises I start tying my hair up with the only hair tie I have on me. I look for a hat and find a military hat with a bill. I put it on and tuck my ponytail into the hat. I have to make sure that no one can see my eyes, and my long hair. I leave a note for Tobias before I leave his room. I can't stay here for long, they'll definitely find me.

I start walking down the stairs; I keep my head low so the bill of the hat will continue to cover the upper half of my face. I can't believe I am trying to leave my own faction out of my own free will when I was taken away from my faction by force. But still, I need to make sure that no one gets hurt because of me. I can't allow Jeanine Matthews a reason to harm people for just one person. But then again her plan seems to involve harming innocent people anyways.

I don't know much about her plan, except that she wants to rid every divergent in this city. Someone's killing off Divergents, and I know no one in Abnegation would do something like that, and definitely not Johanna Reyes. She's the representative of Amity, and she will not kill people just because they are "divergent" or "different". I'm not really sure about Jack Kang, the leader of Candor. Candors seek out the truth, so maybe he would deliberate and think about the true character of a divergent before deciding the verdict.

Why does she want to get rid of the Divergents anyways? We can totally blend into a faction, well I know I can, but I'm not sure about the other Divergents that are out there. I have heard of people who have committed "suicide", and I am one of those people now. She had no right to have Max tell all of Dauntless that I am dead. I am very much alive and they know it.

"Hey, you!" I hear a booming voice shout behind me. I stop walking but I don't turn around. I hear his heavy footsteps coming towards me. "We're looking for a girl about your height, and your frame. But she has long hair," He says. He's chewing his gum right next to my ear. I feel disgusted thinking about all that salvia mixing up with the gum. "Have you seen her?" He asks.

I clear my throat and make it sound like I'm a seventeen year old boy. "Nope, I haven't seen her," I say shrugging my shoulders.

"You're kind of small for a boy," The man says putting a hand on my shoulder. I jumped a little; I was not expecting him to do something like that.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," I add shrugging again, trying to tell him that I don't want his hand there. Why did I choose to sound like a seventeen year old boy? I probably sounded like a fifteen year old boy at least. Fifteen year olds have already gone through the voice changing stage. I stand there waiting for them to say that I can leave, hoping that I can.

"You can go, we'll keep looking," The man says. I start walking and make my way past the training room, and continue onto the train station by the tunnel. That train should take me to the end of the line. I know it leads me to the fence, and there are going to be guards. I forgot to grab a gun; I can be so stupid sometimes.

I wait for the train to come once I have reached the tunnel. I hear it coming and I make a running start. It catches up with me and I lengthen my stride to catch up with the train. I grab hold of the metal pole and press the button to open the doors of the train car. I jump on and see that someone else is in this car with me.

"I was wondering where you were," He says and the voice sounds familiar, like the guard who has been watching over me since I was hospitalized. I look up and see that he's in his usual black clothes and bullet proof vest.

"Hi," I say nervously. I don't bother to take off the hat, I don't want to.

"I got in serious trouble because of you," He says leaning against the wall of the train.

"Sorry, I really needed to get out of there," I say sitting down on the floor. I feel too tired to stand up.

"I know," I hear him approaching and sitting down next to me. I scoot away because I can feel his warmth radiating towards me. Then I feel his hand slipping into mine. I almost pull away but it seems he has handed me a note. I look at him, confused. He just gestures for me to open the note. I do. _No one knows I'm here; I'm going to help you leave this city_. That's what the note says. I look back up at him, surprised that he would help me.

"Why are you helping me?" I whisper to him, hoping he can hear me over the train running along the tracks.

"I overheard that Matthews' plans, I don't like it. At all." He responds in a whisper also. I nod. I'm glad that someone wants to help me out of here. "But we need to pretend that you're my "prisoner" and I'm banishing you," He says taking out a rope. I agree, I'm not even sure I should trust him but I just do. My instincts are telling me to trust this guy.

He ties me up pretty well and holds me up by my jacket. We reach the end of the line and he jumps out first, then I jump out and he catches me before I fall face flat on the ground. "Thanks," I say to him, He just nods as he gruffly grabs my arm. I wince a bit in pain as he drags me with nearly no effort to the fence. The soldiers seeing this start pointing their guns at us.

"State your purpose," One of the guards says. I keep my head down knowing that one of my friends is a guard for the fence. He's probably still mourning over my "suicide". It has only been a week since it was announced. It will not help him move on if he sees me alive right now.

"I'm here to escort this person past the city," The guard who has been guarding me for the past week says in response.

"What has this person done?" Another guard asks, keeping his gun pointed at us.

"She's divergent," The guard holding my arm says. How does he know I'm divergent? Did he overhear from Jeanine that I am Divergent. The guards slowly put their guns down and let him through. Whoa, that excuse actually works. Me being Divergent is a legitimate crime? Jeanine brainwashed these people fairly well.

He is dragging me again past the fence, but he doesn't let go even though we are now a few feet away from the fence. He keeps dragging me with no effort at all. Have I lost that much weight? I know I'm small but come on; I can't be that light, can I? No, I can't be, he's just probably very strong. His hands already feel strong to me.

"You can stop dragging me now," I say to him, but he continues to drag me while my feet are trying to walk. I give up and let him dirty the black boots that I have been wearing for a couple of years.

"What are you doing?" He asks trying to keep me from falling.

"I tried walking on my own, but someone's a bit too strong for me." I say through gritted teeth. He realizes this and loosens his grip and stops walking for a bit.

"Sorry, I guess I got too into the role," He says keeping his hand on my arm.

"Yeah you were dragging me like a rag doll." I say in response. I start walking and so does he. "But your acting is pretty good, I was quite convinced," I say to him. He's gentler with his hold on my arm now. I think a bruise might show up from his firm grip earlier. "Why are you coming along with me?" I ask him after a few moments of silence.

"I have to make sure you're going to make it unharmed." He says in response.

"Unharmed? I can take care of myself." I respond, I want to move my arm away from his hand but I can't since my hands are tied behind my back.

"I know," He responds simply. We continue walking until I say that my feet are killing me and that I am starving. He asks me if I ate anything since I woke up, and I told him, no. We stop in the middle of nowhere. He unties me and I rub my wrists, the rope chaffed at my skin the whole time he was dragging me. "Sorry about that," He says nodding to my red wrists.

"It's fine," I reply as I lie down on the grass/dirt that we have been walking on. The guard takes off the backpack he has been wearing and starts taking out a thermos of something and some bread.

"Here, I know it's not much but it's something," He says. I sit up and see the bread in his hand. I take it and start pinching off some of the bread and putting it into my mouth. I maybe starving but I can still eat like a civilized person.

"I don't even know your name," I say as I take another piece of bread and sticking it into my mouth. He also just stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth. He holds up one finger to say to give him a second.

"Chase," He says swallowing the piece of bread.

"That's a nice name," I say in response as I take another pinch of my bread. He sees what I'm doing and says something.

"You know you don't have to be polite," He says to me.

"Polite about what?" I ask taking another pinch of my bread and popping it into my mouth.

"The way you're eating, you said you were starving, yet you're eating as if you aren't." He says.

"It's better to eat slowly than to eat fast and choke," I add popping another piece.

"Well we should hurry and find shelter before it gets dark." He says. I look up at the sky and it's only ten o'clock, it's not going to get dark until close to six.

"We have hours before sunset," I say finishing my bread. I start getting up and dusting myself off. He hands me the thermos. "What is it?" I ask looking down at the thermos suspiciously. Sure he has been good to me so far, but there must be an ulterior motive as to why he's here with me.

"Don't worry, it's not contaminated with anything, it's just water," He says opening it and taking a sip. He hands it to me and I take a sip of the water. The water hydrates my starched throat. I wipe the remaining droplets of water on the sleeve of my jacket. I feel the heat of the sun beating down on us. Why did Dauntless have to choose black as their color? It's quite hard to adapt to this hot weather.

"So, Chase, where are we going?" I ask him. He takes off his hat and runs his hand through his blonde hair before putting his hat back on.

"You'll see when we get there," He says getting up from his sitting spot. He pulls his backpack on and we start making our trek through the fields of grass. He says he has to tie me up again but I don't want to be tied up again. "The guards can still see us," He says gesturing with his head towards the fence behind us. I glance over and see that some of them are watching us.

"Fine, but this time my hands are in front of me." I say. He agrees and ties them. He puts his hand at the crook of my elbow and starts leading me to wherever we are going.

"So, Chase, are you Dauntless born?" I ask him. I don't know much about him except for the fact that he was my guard probably ever since I was kidnapped, he was quite bad at it or he just really wanted me to escape from my prison.

"No, my original faction was Candor," He says continuing to look forward. He doesn't even look at me. Chase is about a head taller than I am and he does have a medium frame, while I have a tiny frame compared to him.

"Oh, why did you leave?" I ask. I am curious. I would like to get to know the person I'm with for as long as I can.

"I don't know, I just never really liked Candor," He says shrugging his broad shoulders.

"Do you even know my name?" I ask him.

"Alyssa Crystal Shaw. Amity born, Dauntless," He answers. I stare at him with my eyes wide. I'm sure my mouth is open, too. How does he know all of this information? Where did he obtain all of this?

"How did…" I trailed off. I am too shocked to even ask. I have so many questions running through my mind but I can't get them to come out.

"Jeanine Matthews has information on everyone in the city," He says in response to my trailed off question.

"But how did you know I am Divergent? Did she know that, too?" I ask him. I look up at him trying to read his facial expression but I can't. I'm not walking beside him; I'm a little behind, because of his long strides I can't really keep up.

"She found out, then she found a weakness that Eric, has and it just happened to be you," He says in response. "She saw it as a way to keep Eric on her side and to experiment on a Divergent before her plans are finalized." He adds. All of this information is causing me to shiver. He notices and asks if I'm cold. It's probably like eighty degrees out and he's asking if I feel cold?

I just shake my head to answer his question. He doesn't ask again, so I'm guessing he turned around to look to see what my response was.

"Then who was the man in the mask?" I ask him.

"He was a transfer," Chase replies. "He obeyed because he was a coward, I can see it in his eyes," He adds tightening his grip on my arm. I wince, but I don't say anything. "He was sent to you to scare you, but I guess it didn't work." He says again looking at me. He notices the expression on my face and loosens his grip. "Sorry, the thought of seeing him makes me mad," He explains. I just nod and continue walking until he decided to take a break.

I sit down and lean on his back. He's providing some shade from the sun. "Don't think anything about this, I'm just using you as shade," I say leaning my head back onto his back. He doesn't answer and just sits there with me. "Can you just tell me where we're going?" I ask him. No answer. "Chase?" I ask turning my head to try to look at him. I lean away from him a little bit and he falls towards me. He has fallen asleep. That was quick. I try to push him back up to a sitting position but I can't. My hands are still tied, so I try my best to help him lie down without his body crashing to the floor.

I kneel next to him and pull his hat over his eyes. I can escape but he hasn't done anything bad. I look over to the general direction of the fence, I can't see the guards anymore and the fence is just a little line between the city and where we are. I let out a sigh as I sit down again. I might as well look out for any factionless. They might attack. I just need to untie my hands first so I can grab his gun. I start I start rummaging through the backpack that he set down on his left side. There has to be a knife somewhere.

It takes me a couple of minutes to find it. I smile and unsheathe the knife with the handle being held in between my feet. I take off the sheath and make sure the sharp side of the blade is facing me. I squat and start sawing the rope. It takes a while before the last string snaps. The rope falls away from my wrist. I sheath the knife and put it back. After that I start looking for a gun, and I find a pistol in his boot.

Satisfied with the weight, and knowing that there are bullets in there I keep it in safety mode and put it in between my belt and my pants. I make sure that I can take it out quickly and shoot someone if I need to.

I practice a few times before hearing Chase shift in his sleep. He doesn't wake up. I sigh; maybe I should wake him up. I can't wait for him forever. And this sun is burning my fair skin. Yeah I am pretty pale for an Amity born. Sometimes I wonder if I am originally from Amity, but then again my mother also has pale skin. No matter how many times she's been out in the sun she never tanned throughout the years.

I am sitting next to the sleeping Chase just pulling up pieces of grass and tossing them to the side. Then I hear footsteps coming towards us. I stand up and pull out my gun. I look for someone, it's all open space out here so this person can't hide. I turn around and find a factionless standing by the backpack. "Move, or I'll shoot," I say to the person. He slowly stands up with his hands on his head. The man looks up at me and smirks. I make myself look more aggressive by taking a wider stance.

"You're not going to shoot me," He says keeping that smirk on his face.

"I will if you don't back away," I say moving towards him. It's amazing that Chase is sleeping through all of this. He is sleeping in between us and the factionless boy. He doesn't back away. He seriously thinks that I won't shoot him? I lower the gun, pretending that I am letting my guard down, his smirk even becomes wider. He lowers his hands from his head, but now it's my turn to smirk. I shoot him in the knee.

He screams in pain as blood is coming out of the bullet wound. Chase sits up at the sound of a gunshot. Of course that wakes him up. He looks over to his left and sees the wounded factionless. Then he sees me with the gun. "Did you shoot him?" He asks in a shocked tone.

"I'm Dauntless, I need to do what I need to do to survive," I say in response.

"I guess, but I think shooting him was a bit much," Chase says looking at the blood that's spilling over onto the grass.

"No it wasn't, he was going to steal something from the backpack!" I shout. I'm angry that he thinks that it was too much to injure someone who was going to steal from his backpack. That thing is the only thing that can keep us alive in this wilderness. "It would be right to leave him here, let's go," I say putting the gun back to where I was keeping it.

"I don't know," Chase says looking at the now pale factionless boy. I look at him, too and feel some remorse for what I have done but I shake it. We have to move on. I don't care if he's bleeding out. At least I know he didn't take anything from the backpack.

"Let's go," I say to him. He hesitantly follows me. I'm not really sure if he is Candor born or not. I wonder if he was Abnegation, he's a bit too worried about that factionless boy in my opinion. I look behind and see the factionless boy getting up and limping away. He'll be fine, and I don't regret shooting him. He expected me to not shoot him, so I shot him to give him a pleasant surprise. I may look small and fragile, but I'm not weak willed. I never have been. I make my decisions and the decision is final.

"Wait, where's the rope?" He asks looking at my reddened wrists.

"I took them off with your knife," I tell him. This time I'm walking beside him. He's not even holding onto my arm anymore. I took off my jacket because of the heat it was absorbing from the sun. I have it tied around my waist so all I'm wearing now is my thin black t-shirt. I also have another layer under the t-shirt. I guess he can see the bruise he had caused hours ago.

"I must have slept through a lot," Chase says to me with an apologetic smile.

"No, the only thing you missed was the shouting match between me and that factionless boy." I reply.

"Sorry for falling asleep, I must have been super tired to have fallen asleep like that." Chase says putting his hand on the back of his neck.

"It's alright, I probably would have done the same." I say in response. Anyone who is super tired will fall asleep the way he did. I just don't know how he can fall asleep in this crazy heat. I can't take heat. I think that's one of the reasons why I left Amity. The people there are obviously very friendly and happy and pro peace, but the weather just bothered me.

"I usually can stay up for a while," He explains as we keep walking. I look over towards the horizon and see a building emerging.

"What is that?" I ask Chase.

"Oh it's the ruins of the city," Chase answers, it sounds like he knew about this for his whole life.

"The ruins of the city after the purity wars?" I ask him to confirm this.

"Yeah," He responds simply.

"So that means we're approaching the fringe," I say to him. I have never been out there, I feel my heart rate rising and I feel my palms getting a bit sweaty. I have never been this nervous besides the morning of the test. I unintentionally hang onto Chase's arm. He looks down at my hands. "Sorry," I say letting go of his arm and wiping my sweaty palms on my black pants.

"It's alright, I'll protect you," He says in a 'prince charming' kind of way.

"Not funny, I can handle myself," I say fixing my hat, and my I feel my long ponytail coming out of the hat.

"I know, you're just nervous about what's out in the fringe," He says. "I can tell." He adds with a creepy voice. I didn't think of him as a joking type of person.

"I didn't think you were much of a joking type." I say to him.

"Yeah I try to be serious all the time," He adds exaggerating his neutral face. I couldn't help but laugh. When I stop I see him looking at me in a strange way.

"What? Do I have something on my face?" I ask him. I touch my face and move my hand away to see if I had anything on there.

"No, sorry. Let's keep walking," He says clearing his throat. I wonder if he has feelings for me. I didn't mean to lead him on in anyway, I even told him that the fact that I was leaning on him was because I was using him for shade. That was the only reason that I leaned on him. I know he can tell if I'm lying but I definitely wasn't lying when I told him that.

"Hey you coming?" He asks. I look up and see that he's at least a foot away from me. How long have I been standing here?

"Yeah," I shout to him. I start jogging towards him and we continue walking towards the fringe.

"I have an extra bulletproof vest, want to wear it?" He asks after a few minutes of silence between us.

"Yeah, I think that will ease my mind," I tell him. He chuckles and starts taking out a bulletproof vest. It seems like it would fit me just right. I slip it on after I put on my jacket. The first try it was a bit too big with just my t-shirt under the bulletproof vest. The heat from the sun intensifies because of the extra layer of black. He is about to give me a rifle, but I tell him that I will be fine with just the pistol.

I take it out once we reach the edge of the fringe. I assume the edge of the fringe is where the ruins are, but Chase tells me to just keep it close, and that I shouldn't have it out just yet. I listen to him; I'm just thinking that he's been here before. We are just at the edge of the ruins. I guess the fringe is closer towards the middle of the ruins.

I am praying that we make it out alive without any injuries to wherever we are going.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Eric**

I start making my way to the cafeteria for breakfast. I see Four down there grabbing more than what he usually does and walk off. I wonder where he's going. I follow him and I can tell that he's going back to his room. Confused I watch him go in. I hear him calling out but his voice is too muffled by the walls in between us. I run up the stairs and I know he will not be surprised to see me.

"Who are you looking for, Four?" I ask him leaning against his doorway with my arms crossed. He turns around and sees me. His face goes back from panic to the stoic expression that I see every day.

"You know who I'm looking for, she was here." Four whispers to me, as if anyone else is listening to us, but then again we can never be too careful. I look down at his hand and he's holding a piece of paper. "There's one for you, too." Four says. He walks to his bedside table and hands me a piece of paper with my name on it. I take it, but I don't open it right away.

"She couldn't have gone that far, yet." I say to Four.

"I know, but she's made her decision already, and you know how stubborn she can be," Four answers as calmly as he can. The tension between us will never break, even if a mutual friend is in danger.

"I'm going to look for her anyways," I say. I put the note into my jacket pocket. I run down the stairs and jump from the railing when I realize that the stairs are taking too much time. I continue running towards the train station by the tunnel. It's the closest train station and the easiest one to approach. I run past the training room, knowing that she will not be in here. I stop when I see the guards and a person that could be Alyssa, but her face is being covered by the cap.

I hide in the shadows and watch to see what happens. I hear the guard ask her if she has seen the person they are looking for, but she lies and says that she hasn't, but she lowered her voice a bit. I smile a little, _smart move_. She's always been smart, I wonder if she would have chosen Erudite if she didn't choose Dauntless. Even if she didn't choose Dauntless I would still be able to meet her.

I shake that thought out of my head and continue onto the scene. I look back and see the guards walking away and Alyssa walking in the other direction. _What else did they talk about?_ I think as I follow Alyssa at a safe distance so she doesn't see or hear me. I watch as she waits for the train. If she's leaving I don't want to prevent her from being further away from Jeanine Matthews. She has to get as far away as that woman as possible. I am going to make sure of it. If I follow her and see where she goes, Jeanine is going to integrate me until I give her an answer, but without me following her I will not know.

Jeanine is a smart woman so she will use the truth serum on me. If I really don't know where she is it will be the truth, and I'll be safe. I'll be safe from being thrown off from being part of Dauntless leadership. I watch her as she jumps onto the train car with no effort. Good, she's on her way. I start walking away from the train station, not wanting to watch the train car go.

I open the note with shaky hands, _Eric, I know you're a good person and you always have been. I do miss seeing the Eric I knew when he was an Erudite. The one whose eyes always lit up about something that sparks his interest, and the one who knew how to laugh and smile. I miss him and I hope to see him soon. – Alyssa_. I take a deep breath and neatly fold the note again. I put it into one of my pockets and make sure that it will stay always stay there.

I don't even know where that Eric is anymore. I buried him deep inside once I realized I needed to change in order to be a good Dauntless leader in Max's eyes. I wanted to be and still want to be on his good side. I don't know what will happen when I'm on his bad side. I've never been on his bad side, ever, and I don't plan on it. I know Alyssa wants to see that Eric again, but I'm afraid he's too far gone.

I take the note out and read it again. "…the Eric I knew." Alyssa, the Eric you knew is dead, he's not here anymore, he's gone. I crumble the piece of paper and throw it onto the ground. I don't need something that reminds me of my past, Alyssa reminds me of my past. It's good that she'll be gone from this place. It's good that she's leaving Dauntless to rid of the Matthews, and – I guess from me. I don't need her anyways.

I start making my way back to the cafeteria and I find it empty with a few people cleaning the tables. I missed breakfast again. Who cares I can just eat a big lunch. I start walking back to my room and see that there's a note taped onto my door. I roll my eyes and take it off of my door. It's from Jeanine, she must know that she has escaped and wondering where she is. I look at the note and it says that she wants to see me in Erudite headquarters. I heave a sigh and start making my way to the my old faction's headquarters.

I reach the headquarters and start making my way to Jeanine's office. It's on the top floors and I see her sitting there with a stern expression on her face. "I know you know where she is." Jeanine says keeping her face as stern as possible.

"I don't." I say to her. I knew where she was, but I don't know where she is now.

"Then check Dauntless cameras," Jeanine says sounding a bit angry and annoyed. I haven't seen her angry, yet. She's always calm, cool and collected like most Erudites, because a calm mind is a mind that will make the wisest decision.

"I will, and I will report to you," I say to her as I start making my way out of the office.

"Don't you dare try to lie, Eric." She says in a threatening tone.

"Don't worry, why would I lie to you?" I say turning around to face her again. I leave with a sarcastic smile on my face. She doesn't try to stop me. I continue walking out of the Erudite headquarters and make my way to the train station going back to Dauntless headquarters. I am standing and leaning against the train car. I really hope I don't see her face in the camera at all. She seems to have hidden her face well while she was out of Four's room. Four might even have erased footage of her face being shown anyways. He's like that, that stiff. Once a stiff always a stiff.

I walk into the control room to find Four sitting there looking at all the computer screens.

"What's up?" He asked.

"I just need to check for any footages of you-know-who." I say to him plainly with my arms crossed. I don't hear him answer me so I look at the screen after I hear the sound of him typing. I see the words, "I erased it all." He doesn't even turn to look at me to see if I read it. I nod as a thanks, and I'm sure he saw me in the reflection of one of those screens.

I walk out and just prowl around in my room after that. This feeling, what is it? She was with Four last night. She didn't bother to come to see me. She just went up and left and only left me a note. The note! I should have just ripped it up, instead of crumbling it! Someone must have picked it up. Great!

I start running back to the station. I can't let anyone else see that note! She wrote some things that I don't want people to know about me. I run as fast as I can until I reach the training room. I power walk to the train station looking for the crumbled up yellow piece of paper. I continue looking until I hear footsteps nearby and a voice that says, "Looking for this?" I slowly turn around to find Alyssa's friend Samantha. "When were you going to tell me sh-" I interrupt her by covering her mouth with my hand. She pushes it away and pushes me away.

"Shhh, Let's talk in my room," I say grabbing her by the wrist. She doesn't protest and follows. She's a smart one, too. No wonder she is best friends with Alyssa ever since their initiation.

"What's going on?" She asks once I closed the door to my room. "She's alive, isn't she?" Samantha said holding up the piece of paper. Her fair skin has turned into a flush red. She's furious that no one told her that she was alive, and that Alyssa didn't leave her anything, but left me something.

"Shhh, people can still hear you," I say in a whisper. I close all the blinds and make sure that there aren't any cracks. "Look, she is alive, but no one else can know." I say quietly. She is not satisfied with my answer.

"Why?" She asks crossing her arms. "I need to know what _actually_ happened to my friend." She says shaking the note.

"If you know she's alive you might be in danger," I say in one breath. She looks at me shocked that I would even care about her safety. "You will put her in danger, too." I add.

"So you care about her, I thought you did." She says with a smirk on her face.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I ask snatching the note from her.

"The way she wrote that note it's not something she'll write to someone she knew for a year or two." Samantha adds walking to a nearby wall and leaning on it.

"You're right, she wouldn't." I say looking down at the crumbled note. Her once neat handwriting is now ruined with the wrinkles on the paper.

"So how long did you know her for?" Samantha asked turning to face me.

"I don't know, since we were six?" I say to Samantha. I've known Alyssa for as long as I can remember. I don't remember a day without her coming to see me and hanging out after school, or during school. A lot of people in Erudite didn't like the fact that I was such good friends with an Amity. Erudites saw the Amity as slackers and who just loved to do nothing and just laze around all day. But not Alyssa, she actually tried her best at school. Obviously she did her studying at the school library instead of home.

"You've known her for twelve years?!" Samantha sounds shocked.

"Yeah, I guess." I say shrugging my shoulders. I never counted the days that I've known her but I guess it's been eleven years, she is seventeen now. I guess time really does fly.

"Wow, that's a long time." Samantha says sitting down on one of my chairs. I didn't even ask her to sit, yet she decides to sit down anyways.

"Look, yeah I've known her for a long time, but how is that relevant?" I ask out of annoyance.

"It's relevant because, people usually develop feelings for the other party," Samantha says simply. I look at her, taken aback by what she had just said. _Feelings? _

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I say to her folding my arms, and keeping my distance from the girl. She looks up at me with a suspicious smile on her face. Does she think I have feelings for Alyssa? "Look, I don't feel that way about her," I say still keeping my arms crossed.

"Really? What if she started dating someone?" Samantha says cocking her head to the side. When she asked that I felt a heat surging through me, and it continues to boil my blood. What is this feeling? I see that she raises an eyebrow, judging me by how I feel when she asked me that question. "You seem a bit jealous, there, Eric." She says with a triumphant smile on her face. Is that why she came here?

"I am not, and if that's all you came for, get out." I say.

"No, that's not all I came here for; I'm just wondering if you know where my best friend is." She says still sitting in the chair that she sat on without permission. I am really starting to get annoyed by this girl. I walk closer to her. Close enough that the tips of our shoes are touching. She looks up at me, trying not to look nervous. I smirk.

"She's out of the city," I whisper, I don't want anyone else to hear this. If Max hears this information he is going to tell Jeanine, but then again Jeanine might just let her escape. There are plenty of Divergents in hiding in all of the factions. There are probably some Divergents hiding right under her nose, and she doesn't know about it. But then again, I might lose my position as leader, and Four might have the spot once Max demotes me. That feeling of anger is starting to boil my blood again. I move away from that wretched girl before she can push me away.

"What? How?" She asks also in a whisper.

"She just is, okay?" I say out of irritation. How can Alyssa be friends with this girl? She's not reasonable and she's just so, annoying. I do remember the first time I saw Samantha. She was one of the top five jumpers and she was wearing the Erudite colors. I don't remember seeing her in the Erudite headquarters or at school. Strange, I definitely would have noticed her annoying nature.

"Okay, but can you at least tell me why Max said she was dead?" The girl asks not leaving my room or the chair. She just sits there with her legs and arms crossed, waiting for me to answer her question. I let out an exasperated sigh.

"I would, if I could." I say sounding annoyed and irritated. Why didn't she get the message that I didn't want to talk about this? Why can't she just leave and deal with the information that was given to her? She's being an Erudite by staying here and asking all these questions. An Erudite wants all the information before jumping to a conclusion.

"Why can't you tell me? Is it because it will put her in danger or your 'career' in danger?" She asks me in a condescending tone. My lips are probably straight right now. She hit me in the core, right to the core. "It's probably to keep your career isn't it?" She asks cocking her head to the side. She has that triumphant look on her face again. I want to slap her, hard, just to slap that expression off of her face. "Eric, that's all you care about, your career, not Alyssa. I'm quite glad she saw right through you." The girl adds before getting up from her chair. She start walking to the door but I stop her.

"So what? So what if I care more about my career than her?" I ask my voice filled with hatred for this girl. I squeeze her arm a bit tighter and I don't see her wince, she just stares back at me with the same amount of hatred for me. Alyssa would have never fallen for me anyways, not with the way I am now. Sure I might have feelings for her but I always push those aside and think about ways to keep my career as a Dauntless leader.

"It just tells us what kind of person you are." The girl says through gritted teeth. She tries to wrench free of my grip, but I tighten it causing her to wince in pain this time. That's all I had to see, so I let her go. "You're despicable." She says with disgust and walks out of my room rubbing her arm.

I throw the note on the floor. I flip my table and punch my bed, hard causing all the dust on it to fly up and announce their presence. I clear my table by sweeping my arm across the surface and just let my anger out on my room. I don't care about the mess I am making, I'm too angry to care anyways. Why did she have to come in here and make the day worse for me? That wretched girl, just thinking about her makes my blood boil. I take a deep breath and start making my way to the training room. I start punching the punching bags without stopping; I need to punch the "life" out of these things in order to let my anger out. I don't know what else to do.

After probably a couple of hours I hear some people by the chasm. I make my way there to see Four beating up Drew. I continue watching from a distance and see that Four has saved the initiate that was unconscious after her fight with Peter. She looks like she's dead but Four seems furious with the fact that Drew, Peter, and… Al?

I had no idea Al would want to attack anyone. Why would he do something like this? I remember how horrible he was with the knives, but he had this "cowardly" way about him. Ah, that's why he's doing what he's doing. He was afraid that he would end up factionless, and that is probably going to be his fate if that girl continues to climb up the ranks. I'm not surprised that Peter and Drew would do something like this. I know it was him who stabbed Edward with a butter knife.

"Four, the hospital's that way," I say to him pointing to the direction of the hospital, it seems he's going back to his room.

"I know, I'll just take care of her," He says with a gruff voice. I just let him carry off the limp girl to his room. I know, Four, he will just take care of her. I look at the three boys. I wait until Four is far enough away that he can't hear me.

I look at the three boys who were just beaten up by their initiation instructor. They look pathetic. All of them just glanced at me and ran back to wherever they were coming from. The three of the look pathetic, I feel like beating the crap out of them but Four already did that deed. The anger that I felt earlier has dissipated. Seeing Four angry sometimes helps.

I walk back to the training room. I look at the different stages that we have for the initiates to fight on. I remember watching Alyssa fighting one of the strongest boys of her initiate class. She managed but was also knocked out like that initiate girl that Four carried to his room. Four was barely watching the fight, but once he realized that she was lying on the floor unconscious he carried her without a word to the rest of the group. Almost everyone in her initiate class thought that Four and Alyssa would end up together but it never happened. If it did I don't know what I would do.

I also remember her with the knives. It took her while to get used to throwing the knives the way we taught her and the rest of the class how. But she was doing a lot better than she did with the guns. Her precision with the knives was quite close to Four's precision. I felt like she had practiced before the session.

And of course after the knives there was the capture the flag night. She was on my team; she was the only small person that I picked to be on my team. Everyone was quite shocked about that, and Alyssa didn't really mind. I had the advantage of picking a place first and we picked the pier. Alyssa climbed up to the bell tower and saw where Four's team hid their flag. It was up by the ferris wheel, and Alyssa knew Four wouldn't climb up there.

She suggested that she should climb up there, being the smallest and all. Everyone agreed and two were left behind to guard the flag that was by the docks. We started making our descent to and separated into two groups. Alyssa was behind a few of the bigger people in our group. She apparently used them as a distraction. After that she sneaked her way around the chaos and started running towards the ferris wheel. She had to take down one person from their team and she did.

I watched as she climbed up the ferris wheel nimbly. I watched her with a smile on my face but that soon faded when I saw someone climbing up towards her. She seemed to notice and picked up her speed. She reached the end of the later and started using the spokes of the wheel to keep her up. She swung and grabbed another spoke and took hold of the flag. The person who was chasing her stopped and the two of them started making their way down. At that moment I couldn't help but lift her up and to show the rest of the team that she managed to capture the flag.

Once I put her down she ran to her teammates and they celebrated with her. I looked over at Four and he didn't seem too disappointed, I think it was because his friend was the one who managed to steal their flag. Maybe he put it up there to see how fast she could climb or he just knew how much she liked to climb to high heights. I knew that Four had a fear of heights, he always had. He would not have put it up there.

After that night it was time for the fear landscapes. She did so well it surprised everyone, some people did try to hurt her, but I tried to prevent it, but that didn't work, she did end up getting hurt. I was quite angry with myself when I heard the news about her having to be in the hospital for a couple of days. After the initiation the initiates were finally full ledged Dauntless members. Everyone was celebrating.

The smile on Alyssa's face was unforgettable when she was being lifted up by the rest of her Dauntless members. When she reached me I helped her down from the crowd. Her smile faded a little when she saw it was me who had pulled her down. I was a bit confused as to why but knowing her she was probably a little scared of me, scared of the person that I have become since I was at Dauntless for only a year.

I remember feeling angry and disappointed from the fact that Alyssa would see me as someone she has to be wary around. How did I become so cruel? I most likely became this way because I'm chose to be a Dauntless leader, and the fact that I was second to a stiff. Second to a stiff was not something that I was happy about.

I hope she survives out there, I know she can handle herself.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note:** I am soo sorry for being a day late. The internet was down because of a very old modem and the technicians came today to fix it up and give us a new modem. Thank you for your patience. I tried uploading it through my phone but it didn't work. Enjoy =)

**Chapter 7**

**Alyssa**

"Chase, tell me about you," I say to him as we continue walking deeper into the ruins after a night spent out in the ruins. Luckily no one attacked us. We talked until I fell asleep. I don't even know if Chase even had a wink of sleep last night. I look up at his face and see dark circles and bags under his eyes. "I'll keep watch tonight," I say. I do feel refreshed even though I slept on a hard ground with debris surrounding us.

"I'm fine I'll keep watch again, you should sleep," He says with a big yawn. I roll my eyes.

"Look at you, you're clearly tired, just let me keep watch today, okay?" I say looking up at him. He lets out a sigh and he nods. "And you still need to tell me about you, you know everything about me." I add as we continue walking to wherever we're going.

"I don't know _everything_ about you." He responds putting an emphasis on everything. He knows my full name, while I only know his first name. Knowing someone's full name is quite is a big deal to me.

"Okay, fine." He says in defeat. I smile glad that he's deciding to answer. "My name is Chase Anthony Hunter. I am Dauntless born, and I am also Divergent, but Jeanine never found out."

"What? Is that why you sympathized with me?" I ask him feeling a little bit angry that he is probably just has pity on me, and that's the reason why he's out here with me in the first place. I hate it when people see me as something they can feel pity for. No, I don't want to be around someone like that.

"No, that's not why." He says trying to get himself out of the pit he dug himself into.

"And how did Jeanine never find out?" I ask him crossing my arms. "If she found out I am Divergent than she should have known you were, too!" I say nearly shouting at him.

"Look, she doesn't know every Divergent in the city," He tells me.

"Oh really? I'm sure she knew you're Divergent," I say with a sarcastic laugh. I'm sure Jeanine Matthews is smart enough to know that one of her body guards hired to guard me is Divergent. She somehow knew that I am Divergent, even though my aptitude test was erased, and my practice for the fear landscape footages was also erased thanks to Tobias. He knew I could act so he told me to act as if I'm scared and that the simulation is actually real. I did just that when the final test came and she was there to see the whole thing. I acted terrified but I also planned out what I would do before the test.

"So I'm guessing you know my fears, then too?" I ask him. We walk past a tall building with broken windows. I look up to see that the roof is gone and there are metal rods sticking out of it.

"No I don't know _that_ much about you," He says as he starts pulling me behind me. I smack his hand and he pulls away confused. "What was that for?" He asks.

"You're pulling me behind you." I say to him. He puts his index finger over his mouth to say that we should be quiet. I furrow my brows confused, I want to see what's going on. I slowly take my gun out and keep it in a good position to fire at anyone who is a threat to us. We run to hide behind one of the buildings.

"I think someone's been following us," He whispers to me. I am standing behind him to see if anyone will sneak up on us.

"Really? I think we should have noticed," I whisper back to him. I hear something to my right and I point my gun in that direction and look to see if anyone is in that dark building. I squint my eyes trying to see if anyone is in there but I see nothing. I turn back around and face forward to find a little boy standing right in front of me. I lower my gun and put it back in between my belt and pants. I look down at the boy. He seems to be about five years old and those innocent eyes looking up at me. I lower myself to his height and smile at him.

"Are you lost?" I ask him in a gentle voice.

"Who are you tal-?" Chase's question was cut off when he turns around to find the little five year old boy that I am talking to.

"He's just a little boy, what harm can he do?" I ask Chase. He kneels next to me. I watch the boy look up at Chase and he seems a bit scared of him. If I was him, I would be too. Chase has full on armor of a soldier while I don't, and Chase is pretty big so what kind of kid wouldn't be afraid of him. "Where's your mom and dad?" I ask him.

"I don't know, I've been trying to look for them." He replies trying to stifle his tears.

"It's okay to cry," I say to him and he just starts letting the tears roll down his cheek, and begins to wail.

"Look at what you've done," Chase says covering his ears. I glare at him as I pick him up to comfort him.

"It's good that he's wailing, his parents can probably hear him now, all we have to do is wait for them to come and get him." I say to him over the wails of the little boy. It's better to show your emotions instead of hiding them. "It's okay, we'll find them." I say to the little boy. He leans back to look at me with his teary eyes.

"Really?" He asks wiping away the tears. I smile.

"Yes, really. Now do you remember where you and your parents like to go?" I ask him. He nods. I put him down and I hold on to his hand as he starts leading us to wherever his parents are.

"I don't know if we can trust this little boy," Chase says to me.

"He's just a little boy," I counter. "And you still haven't told me about your history," I say to Chase. "You know my name _and_ age. I would like to know how old you are." I say to him.

"I'm five!" The little boy says. I laugh and smile at him.

"You're such a big boy already!" I say in response to his cheerful answer.

"Yeah, I'm five, too." Chase says in monotone.

"He says he's five, too, do you think he's five?" I ask the little boy. I watch him look up at Chase and he shakes his head.

"He's too big to be five," the little boy says looking up at me. I smile at him and ruffle his hair with my free hand.

"I think he's too big to be five, too." I reply. The little boy smiles and continues leading us to wherever we're going. I'm not really paying attention to our surroundings as we pass by a bunch of broken down buildings.

"Fine, I'm eighteen," He says finally.

"Oh, so you were the initiate class before me." I say to him. It's crazy that we are just one year apart and I've never seen him at school. Maybe I have but I just don't remember what he looks like.

"Yup, I remember you being one of the top five jumpers," He says to me as the little boy continues to lead us. He's been quiet for a while. Maybe it's just because no one's talking to him right now. I look down at the boy and he has this stoic expression on his face. I walk a bit faster and kneel in front of him to see what's wrong.

"You okay? Are you tired?" I ask the little boy.

"No, I'm hungry, I didn't have breakfast." He says rubbing his belly. I smile and tell Chase to give the boy some bread. Chase and I ate already but the little boy needs the food so we give him some of our bread. Chase takes off the backpack and kneels next to the boy as he fumbles in the bag for some bread. Once the boy sees the bread in Chase's hands his face lights up. I smile and watch him take it and take a bite.

Chase stands up and zips up the backpack. I look around our surrounding and I see a laser pointing at Chase's chest. I freeze up. "Chase," I say quietly.

"What?" He asks looking at me. I point at his chest and he looks down. He pulls out his gun quick and points up to where the possible shooter is. I look up trying to see where the shooter is. I hold out my hand for the little boy to grab but he doesn't. I look down and see that he's no longer there anymore. I look at myself and see there's a red dot on my chest as well. I take out my gun, even though it's not good enough to shoot far distances.

"Run, we just need to get out of range." I say to him. He nods and I start backing away slowly and into the building. I stand behind the wall waiting for them to shoot us. After what seems like minutes the first gunshot goes off. Chase and I both fall down to the floor to avoid the stray bullet. He motions for us to go deeper into the building. I nod and follow him. We are using our elbows and knees to crawl and stay low on the ground. I hear the shots again and I duck but I keep moving trying to avoid the bullets as much as possible.

I watch as Chase keeps moving faster than I can. I try to keep up with him as something warm starts spreading from my shoulder. _Great…_ I think to myself as the pain from moving my arm is starting to become unbearable. I manage to catch up to Chase.

"You alright?" He asks me. I nod in response. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and I wince. "I feel something wet," He says. He removes his hand and sees my blood on it. "You were hit?" He asked surprised.

"I'll be fine, we just need to get out of here," I say to him. He nods and grabs my hand, well the one that wasn't stained with blood, and we continue running as far as we can from the shooters. I can still here the gunshots but we are definitely out of range this time.

"You need to rest, and we need to put pressure on that wound," He says looking at the bleeding gaping wound on my shoulder. I cover it with my hand so that he will stop staring at it.

"It's not your fault, let's get out of here," I say. He nods and we continue walking cautiously trying to find a safe haven. I start feeling a little dizzy as we continue our search for a building that can hide the two of us well.

"You okay," He asks me. I just nod in response. I don't feel okay but I can pretend that I am for now. I do feel like my legs are made of jello and that our surroundings are starting to spin a little. He supports me by lending his arm to me. I'm glad he's here. I can address this wound but I feel like we're outnumbered by the people that are shooting at us. All I know is that there are two people trying to kill us, but there can be more for all we know.

After running for quite some time Chase finds a hiding spot and we stay there breathless, especially me. He starts fumbling through his backpack after he helps me sit down. I haven't stopped bleeding ever since I've been hit. I probably look paler than I usually am by now. Chase removes a white box with a red cross on it. _A first aid kit, of course_. I think to myself as he starts looking for gauze, and he does. I slowly unzip my jacket with my good arm and he gently helps me slide it off. I wince; every movement hurt seemed to hurt.

"Sorry," He says.

"It's okay; it's not your fault." I say trying to hide the pain in my voice. He puts the gauze on me and applies the pressure onto my shoulder gently. I close my eyes and bite my lip trying to stifle any screams I will be making because of the bullet wound.

"Just bear with me," He says putting a little bit more pressure on the wound. I stay as still as I can while turning my head away. The heat of the pain is spreading from my shoulder and down to my arm.

"How about you? Did you get hit?" I ask through gritted teeth.

"No, I'm alright," He says still putting as much pressure as he can to my wound. I still feel it bleeding out and soaking the gauze. I swallow. I'm not feeling much of the pain anymore.

"So, is the bullet still in there?" I ask him. He doesn't dare to remove the gauze or his hand.

"We'll find out." He says still keeping his hands there. "You're stronger than I thought," He says. He slowly removes his hand and I start feeling the pain come back and hitting me stronger than I thought it would. "Sorry," He says looking at the wound. "I see it," He says. He moves to the first aid kit and takes out a tweezers. He cleans it with an alcohol swipe before he comes over and puts it into the hole.

I bite my lip harder as he slowly puts the tweezers into the wound. The cold metal coming into contact with my skin causes me to shiver. It takes him a few seconds to take out the bullet from the back of my shoulder. "There it's out," He says. I hear him dropping the bullet onto the concrete floor.

"Thanks," I say to him. I tell him that I can stitch myself up but he says that the wound is in the back. The bullet didn't penetrate so there's nothing in front of my shoulder. "Alright, just do it as well as you can," I say to him.

"Don't worry, I have seen a nurse stitch me up many times," He says with a smile. Was that nurse me? I wonder. I feel the needle go into my skin and the thread bringing my skin closer together. After a couple of minutes he breaks the thread with his teeth and he ties it off. I don't want to touch it, just in case the stitches might come loose. He puts gauze over the stitches and wraps some athletic tape around my shoulder to keep it there.

"Thanks," I say again feeling a bit tired.

"No problem, it looks like you'll need some sugar," He says taking out a piece of candy for me. I smile and take the piece of candy. I haven't had candy in a while. I unwrap it and pop it into my mouth. It has a sweet tangy taste that fills my mouth.

"I think we should keep moving, they are probably looking for us," I say with the candy nearly dissolved.

"You should rest though," He argues. I know I should rest but we can't stay here. If people are trying to kill us then we should keep moving.

"Alright, but I'll be carrying you," He says getting up from his seat and walking towards me. He walks to my left and puts my good arm around his neck. He lifts me up with ease, as if I weigh nothing to him.

"Am I really that light?" I ask him. He looks down at me and I feel myself blush. _Alyssa, no. He's looked at you a million times this is no different._ I think to myself. I smile and he smiles back.

"No actually you're quite heavy," He says in a joking manner. I couldn't help but laugh along with his little joke.

"Aww how sweet?" Chase and I look in the general direction of where the voice is coming from. I squint hard and see the little boy with his hands tied behind his back and two men holding onto him.

"Let him go!" I shout wanting to jump from Chase's arms, but I don't have the energy to do so.

"Why should we? He's the one that lead you to us," The man on the boy's left says with a smirk on his face. My heart sinks. So Chase was right about the little boy. How can I be so blind?! There has to be a reason as to why the little boy did what he did. If some people I love are in danger I probably would have done the same thing.

"Who are you anyways?" Chase asks holding onto me a little tighter than earlier. I can see the smirk forming on the two men lips. They seem too much like one another to be two different people. Those two are most likely twins. They act the same way, they look like one another. I can see that they are dressed in Dauntless colors, too.

"You're Dauntless, why are you trying to kill us?" I ask the two of them. I don't seem so tough right now, being held by someone, but I also don't want to faint in front of them, they're going to take advantage of that.

"Smart girl you got there." The man holding onto the five year old says in a condescending tone. I glare at him.

"They're not Dauntless, they're traitors, I see the blue armband." Chase says to me. I noticed them too but I thought they didn't mean anything, just an accessory. Traitors? What does he mean by traitors?

I hear someone clapping very slowly, "Yes your boyfriend is right," the man on the right says with his inhumane smile that sends shivers down my spine. I sure hope Eric doesn't turn into someone like this even though I fear that he has. They have the same look in their eyes as Eric does. "We are allies with the Erudite, we believe their cause." The man adds to his explanation.

"Her cause to get rid of Divergents." I say in a whisper as a realization for myself.

"Right you are, darling," The other man who is holding the scared little boy. I jump out of Chase's arms and steady myself. I can't stand it anymore. That boy is terrified and probably not only for himself.

"I told you to let him go, didn't I?" I ask through gritted teeth. I can't stand seeing such a young boy being terrorized by two adults. They need to pick on someone their own size.

"Stop! You still need to rest, let me handle this!" I hear Chase shout behind me but I don't listen to him. I can't, I just can't. That poor boy is clearly horrified that this is happening to him.

"Listen to your little boyfriend there," The man on my right says. The rage that I have inside of me builds up and I start running towards the man who spoke out of turn. I see him take out his knives, and I dodge them as I jump over him and use his head as a "stepping stone" to land safely behind him. I take the gun from his back and kick him in the stomach when he turns around. I cock the gun ready to shoot him, but the pain from my right shoulder is killing me. I try to ignore it but it intensifies, so I just shoot the guy in his foot. His screams echoes throughout the building.

"How dare you?!" I hear the other man say. I duck as he tries to swing a punch at me. I swing my leg out and trip him. He lands on his back. I pick up the gun I stole from his "twin". I cock it and look over to the little boy who has managed to run over to Chase. He seems scared of me. I lower my gun. I can't, I can't turn into a monster myself. "That's right, surrender." The man says. I knock him out with the butt of the gun along with the brother who is rolling in pain. This should give us enough time to distance ourselves away from them.

I slowly make my way to Chase and the little boy. Chase is untying him as I make my way over. He turns to me and smiles, I smile back. "You were great," He says getting up from his kneeling position. My smile soon fades when the world around me starts spinning out of control. I feel my body leaning forward and Chase's arms catching me just in time. "But you need to rest," He adds as he lifts me up with ease again.

"Will she be okay?" I hear the little boy ask Chase.

"She'll be fine, she's a tough girl," I hear Chase reply to the little boy.

"Good, because I want her to teach me to fight like that," I can picture the little boy putting his fists up and punching the air. I smile at that image. He's just so cute.

"Hey, what about me?" Chase asks, and judging from his voice he sounds a bit hurt that the little boy didn't want to learn from him.

"You can be her co-teacher," He says in return. I can still tell that he's a little disappointed that the boy didn't want Chase as his main teacher. I smile thinking that this might just be a little better now, or not. Those two will definitely be looking for the little boy and try to kill me again or bring me back if that was the case. Whatever it is we need to protect this little boy even if his parents will be killed because he's traveling with us.

"How you feeling?" Chase asks putting me down as we start making "camp" in one of the many abandoned buildings.

"I feel better, thanks," I say to him as I sit up into a more comfortable position. I look at the little boy and see that he has already fallen asleep. "How is he?" I ask Chase. He looks back at the boy and he turns back to me with his dark brown eyes, looking into mine. I look away feeling my cheeks flush, I sure hope he doesn't notice me blushing whenever he looks into my eyes.

"He's doing well, I sure hope his parents are okay, wherever they are," He lays out a sleeping bag for me.

"You sure are prepared." I say to him.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," He says with a shrug. I smile glad that he is prepared for whatever is going to happen. Without him here I probably be starving and still be out in the desert. I surely would have died. I didn't even have a gun on me. Hand to hand combat can only do so much.

After he helps me into the sleeping bag he sets up his own next to the little boy. He lifts the little boy and slips him into his own sleeping bag and he shares it with the boy. It seems that Chase seems to be the type of person. I surely didn't see that coming. I smile at him and he smiles back. I think I see a hint of red on his cheeks, too. Maybe he does have feelings for me, and so do I. No, I can't think about this. A war is definitely brewing, there's no time for love.

I lie down and close my eyes. The ground is hard but I know I can fall asleep, I'm exhausted and tired. I need to sleep to restore my energy. I lie on my left side, maybe lying down on my back isn't such a good idea, with my bullet wound and all.

"Alyssa, wake up," I hear someone say. I open my eyes and see Chase kneeling next to me. "We need to keep moving," He says. I nod and sit up. The soreness spreads through my body. Sleeping on hard ground isn't the best for side sleeping.

"I think I should be able to walk right now," I say to him as he packs up the sleeping bag.

"Are you sure?" He asks me with a questioning look on his face.

"Of course I'm sure, I'll be fine." I say standing up. I don't feel dizzy but the gauze needs to be changed. The little boy wakes up and rubs his sleepy eyes. His bed head just makes him look even more adorable, if that's even possible. I walk up to the little boy and greet him. "Hey little guy, I see you slept well." I say with a small laugh and smoothing out his messy hair.

"Yeah he slept very well while I was being kicked." He says rubbing his hip. I laughed while the little boy yawned a bit. He still wasn't fully awake yet.

"You'll be fine," I say to Chase. He pouts and continues packing. The little boy gets out of the sleeping bag and let's Chase roll it up.

"Are we going to have breakfast?" The little boy asked in a quiet voice.

"Hmm, I don't know, are we?" I ask looking at Chase as he puts the other sleeping bag back into his big back pack.

"We're almost out of bread, so just a small one." Chase says taking out a piece of bread and splitting them into three parts. We give the biggest one to the little boy of course. After that Chase changes my bandage and I put my jacket on. The mornings and nights out in the ruins are pretty chilly compared to just outside of the fence.

"Do you think those two people will be back?" I ask Chase in a whisper. I don't want to startle the now calm little boy. I don't even want to know the little boy's name for fear of his safety.

"Most likely, we just have to look out for them." He says. I nod. The two of us scan the area while we continue walking to wherever we're going. I still trust Chase and all but I don't know where that trust is coming from, it just came out of nowhere like on that day we were on the train, and now these feelings seemed to have developed. Trust takes a while to establish so why did I trust him instantaneously? I should have doubted him from the beginning. He did work for Jeanine.

"Do you know most of Jeanine's plans?" I ask wondering, I can't help it I just need to know what she's doing. If she's _only_ trying to take out the Divergents, she'll leave the others alone, right? But where would most Divergents hide? Which faction? Being a Divergent means that one doesn't fit into one faction. Would there be more Divergents amongst the Factionless? Abnegation might also be a good place to hide. During the initiation there are no fear landscapes and no serums to resist. So maybe most of the Divergents are among the Abnegation.

"No, I only know that she wants to get rid of the Divergents, I'm not sure if she'll do more than just that." Chase responds to my question. I nod in response. Makes sense. He isn't that high up in the ranks with Jeanine, he was just a guard, a guard for me.

"So I guess you don't know which faction she's going to attack, do you?" I ask him. He shakes his head. I believe him. Where is this trust coming from? Why do I have this instant trust for a boy that I barely know? If I trust him so easily there has to be some particular reason. He seems to trust me easily, but then again he knows almost everything about me, while I don't.

We continue walking and stopping for meals while we can. Of course the little boy sometimes whined about being hungry, it took a lot of explaining to do to make him feel better and to help him understand why we have to save as much food as we can. He slowly understood when Chase explained what a life without food was like. The look on his face was pure horror. It worked so it will help us keep moving as swiftly as possible and as far away as those two men as possible.

We finally reach the edge of the fringe. We tell the little boy to keep close and he clings onto my hand a little tighter. I squeeze back giving him some reassurance. We see some little cardboard houses on the sides of buildings, we even see some children in rags running around and playing. It doesn't seem as bad out here, well not as bad as Chase made it seem. He has his gun ready to shoot at anyone who tries to attack us.

"You never told me where we're going," I tell Chase.

"You'll be safe there, that's all you need to know." He says. I still don't get that feeling of distrust in my stomach. _Stop trusting him so easily! Question him more!_ I scold myself.

"Right, are you sure about that?" I ask him feeling a little guilty that I asked him such a thing. I have asked him questions but not much; this is actually my first time in a while. I guess it just feels a little weird after not asking a question. I hope he doesn't take this the wrong way.

"Yes, I'm sure. They'll keep you safe." He says turning to look at me with his sweet gentle smile. My heart is beating a little faster and I feel my cheeks flush. I look down at the ground and hear a little giggle coming from the boy.

"I think she likes you," I hear the little boy say.

"What are you talking about?" I ask the little boy giving him a small squeeze as if to say that he can't say anything more.

"I'm sure of it, sh-" I cover his mouth this time. I give him a firm glance and he nods.

"So he thinks you like me, do you?" He asks looking out into the distance for the two men. I shrug m shoulders, not really sure how I am going to answer that question.

"Can we talk about it later?" I ask him. He nods and we continue walking, and I still have no idea where we are going. Maybe those two men decided to give up and run back to Jeanine out of fright. They should be frightened, I managed to knock them out by myself.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**Alyssa**

Another couple of days has passed. The little boy is healthy as all ways while Chase and I endured some hunger. Both Chase and I have lost some weight. But we know we'll be fine later. The two of us have decided that we have a better chance of survival than a starving five year old. We felt happier seeing the boy happy and healthy, even though he had lost a bit of weight himself. She's just glad that they are able to keep the little boy healthy. He is only five.

"So, I thought you were going to talk to me about what that boy said over there?" Chase asks giving me a nudge with his elbow.

"Oh, right, um. Another time." I respond walking faster just to catch up to the little boy who's running and jumping around. "Be careful, you might hurt yourself." I say to him. He nods and continues to run ahead of me imagining whatever he is imagining. The little boy continues playing around in the ruins. I am still worried about him hurting himself.

"Hey, don't worry. He'll be fine." I hear Chase say. I turn to look at him and see that he's right behind me. I look down at the ground and I can feel him smiling down at me. I'm probably blushing like crazy; maybe that's why my cheeks feel so warm. I step back and look up at him.

"Yeah I guess you're right," I say turning around but I can't find him anywhere. I turn back to Chase and he's also looking around for the little boy. "Ugh! We don't even know his name!" I shout. I start looking for him and running around through every street that we can see. I continue looking for him, running, panicking.

"Did you find him?" Chase asks me breathlessly. We ended up meeting in the middle of an alley. I shake my head not being able to breathe.

"Where can he be?" Chase asks looking around.

"Wait he's only five, he must be playing hide and seek or something." I say trying to reason with myself.

"You're right, he must be hiding somewhere." Chase says smacking his forehead. "Let's look for him." He says. I nod in agreement and we continue looking for the boy and tracing our steps. Of course we separated again just to see if we can find the boy first. That boy really can hide, we have probably been searching for a good twenty minutes and we still can't find him.

"Have you found him yet?" I yell out to Chase, wherever he is. When he doesn't answer I look around for him. I turn a corner and see Chase looking. A sense of relief rushes over me. I would hate to have to look for two boys in the edge of the Fringe. I know I can handle myself but I don't know what's out in the fringe, and it seems like Chase does. "Did you find him yet?" I ask him. He turns and looks at me.

"Nope, no luck, you?" He replies. I shake my head, too. He has to be somewhere nearby, he couldn't have gotten far. He's still small and short and cute. He didn't give away much knowledge of this place. "Where can he be?" Chase asks and I see him running his hands through his hair.

"I don't know, but we should find him," I say. I turn my back around and continue walking trying to look for the boy again. He's hiding pretty well. But I stop moving once I feel tiny arms wrapping around my leg. I look down and see the little boy looking up at me with a mischievous smile playing his lips. I turn around and look to see that Chase has the same smile on his lips. I kneel and meet the boy's gaze.

"You and Chase were playing a trick on me weren't you?" I ask him and he nods. I smile back at the boy. I look up at the sky and see that it's about to get dark. "Chase we need to set up camp, it's almost dark." I say. Chase also looks up and he looks at me confused. I give him a glare.

"Alright, let's set up camp," Chase replies. I smile and stand up. We eat our meager dinner together and let the boy fall asleep first before I begin a conversation with Chase.

I give his arm a good smack and he turns to look at me like he didn't do anything wrong. "What was that for?" He asks rubbing his arm.

"For making me worried sick! I was worried that those two men came and took him again!" I whisper angrily to him. I hit him again. I can't believe that he would do such a thing. "And don't you _dare_ pin it on the boy, he's only five!" I whisper again and smacking his arm again.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. It won't happen again," He says surrendering while rubbing his now sore arm.

"You better be." I say to him. I turn around as if I am not going to hit him again. His guard is definitely down. I turn to hit him but he grabs my arm and stops me from hitting him.

"You are so predictable sometimes," He says with a whisper. I remove my hand, from his and I feel my cheeks are flushed for sure. _Stop blushing!_ I scold myself. I have to stop blushing around this person. I barely know him yet I managed to fall for him. Maybe it's just because of all the time we're spending alone together or just together in general, now that it's not just the two of us.

"Me predictable?" I ask him feeling a little offended that he finds me predictable. How am I predictable? Wait… maybe I am. They have caught me twice when I tried to escape, but this third time was a success, or at least I think it is. "Whatever, at least I made it out," I say to him.

"With my help," He adds as I slip into my sleeping bag for the night. I roll my eyes and turn my back to him. "Well, sweet dreams," I hear him say before he moves to his sleeping bag with the boy. I need to find out that boy's name, it's crazy that I never bothered to ask and he never introduced himself to us. The boy was most likely scared to reveal his identity to us. The two men probably didn't know the kids name. I really hope they don't.

"You, too." I whisper. I know he can't hear me but whatever; I might as well return that saying. I really do hope that he does have sweet dreams, I wonder if he actually hopes that I will, too. _Stop thinking about what he thinks! Get yourself together!_ I. Am. Not. In. Love. No, I can't. It isn't the time, or place.

I end up not really falling asleep at all. I get out of my sleeping bag probably around four in the morning. I walk around. We're in the middle of the fringe, somewhere. I seriously want to get out of here. A lot of people have accused us of being soldiers. Chase is definitely dressed like one but I tell them that he isn't going to hurt anyone. Luckily for us we have the little boy. That boy has saved our lives and he doesn't even know it. Once the people who live in the fringe start a riot the little boy just pokes his head out from behind me or Chase and everyone stops.

It's like they don't want to harm us because we have to take care of someone. I guess the people in the fringe do have a heart. I was expecting them to be crazy no matter what, even if we did have a five year old kid in our company. Maybe it's because some of the people in the fringe have a child or children amongst them.

The three of us are walking in silence when we hear someone shout "soldier". The three of us run to where the commotion is happening. Chase and I see people also in dark clothing and armory. I'm not sure where they are from, but it seems they are familiar with Chase, and he seems like he doesn't know them but I have a feeling that he does. "Look it's Alyssa," A female voice says. Does everyone know who I am? The female ran towards us and I let Chase pull the little boy behind him. I stand next to him, watching for any sign of hostility.

"Who are you? And how do you know my name?" I ask her.

"Don't worry, we're not here to harm you, we're here to take you somewhere safe." The female "soldier" says to us.

"And where is this somewhere?" I ask her.

"You didn't tell her?" The girl said. She looks like she's a couple years older than Chase and I. I look at Chase and he knows he can't keep this charade going. I feel anger and hatred, maybe even betrayal in my veins. Who has he been working with this time? Why does he have so many secrets?

"No, I didn't. I didn't think it was important, she's been through a lot." Chase says looking at me. I look away, too angry to even look at him.

"I know she's been through a lot, we saw the whole ordeal." The woman says.

"You saw _everything_?" I ask. My hands are clenched into fists right now.

"Calm down, we can tell you everything once we get to the headquarters." She says extending the palm of her hands towards me.

"Who is 'this' we you speak of?" I ask, feeling the anger boiling in my blood right now. I better not be going to another prison. I swear if they do I'll find my own way out here. Any place is better than being in a prison right now. Maybe my instincts were wrong to trust Chase instantly.

"You'll see, come on." I feel that I am about to blow up. The kid has never seen me angry. So I take a deep breath and calm myself before I speak.

"No, you're telling me where we are going and then I'll go." I say to her crossing my arms.

"Alyssa," I hear Chase say. It sounds like he's scolding me for trusting this woman. It seems like she's telling the truth but I can't tell. Why can't anyone just tell me where we are going?

I search the eyes of the woman to see if she's going to tell me or not. She closes her eyes and sighs. "You're going to the Bureau of Genetic Welfare." The woman says giving in to my request.

"The what?" I ask. I had no idea that such a thing even existed out here. I'm satisfied that she gave me an answer but I still question if it will be a safe enough place for me, away from Jeanine. I know I'm away from the city but I do still have a tracker in my neck or whatever Eric injected me with. I touch my neck absentmindedly and remember the small pinch of the tracker being put in there.

"Don't worry, I'll explain on the way," Chase says. I finally look at him and I know I can trust him. I nod and follow them to a van. Sure the city had vehicles but nothing like this. The van was still intact along with seats and seat belts. I put the boy on my lap and I put the seat belt around the two of us. I think he's a bit small for the seat belt and I just think that with him sitting on my lap he will be safer.

"So what's this Bureau of Genetic Welfare?" I ask Chase. He's sitting next to me in the middle seat. I think I should be sitting the middle seat, being short and all, but he let me into the van first. I guess he's always been a gentleman ever since I met him. I haven't noticed him because I have been trying to think of escape plans to escape from Jeanine's grip.

"This might shock you a bit," He says gently.

I laugh. "Right, just tell me." I say. He takes a deep breath.

"The city you live in, it's an experiment." He says. That is what I like about Chase he just gets to the point. I would hate it if he just beats around the bush every time the answer to a question is difficult to answer.

"It's an experiment?" I ask confused and obviously shocked. I know he can't tell but it might hit me later. I just want to hear what he has to say about this. _How can other humans experiment on other humans?_ I think to myself. I'm sure there are other ways to experiment with something. I start thinking about the name of the place we are going to. Bureau of Genetic Welfare. _Genetic?_ "Does this experiment have something to do with one's genes?" I ask Chase. He looks at me surprised.

"Wow, you're quite sharp for a Dauntless," The woman says. And she knows what faction I am in, great. Wait, if the city I live in is an experiment those "factions" aren't how other cities are run, too, right? It can't be. An experiment is a test or a trial. There has to be a "controlled experiment" So my city must not be the only experiment that exists.

"Were there other experiments?" I ask. What can I say? I'm naturally curious. I guess that's why the aptitude test says I have aptitude for Erudite along with Dauntless.

"Yes, but none that were as successful as the one you're in." The woman replies as she continues driving through the fringe. I look out the window. The little boy has fallen asleep in my lap. He must be tired; he never did get enough food so maybe sleep might help.

"Where were the other experiments?" I ask her.

"I'm sorry but I can't disclose that information to you," She replies as she makes a right turn. She's pretty good at driving compared to the bus drivers in the city. They were always crazy, trying to avoid this or that on the road. She does, too but I don't feel it as much. Let's just say that she has good control of the van.

"Why? Because I'm not a scientist?" I ask her.

"No, you're new." She responds. I look out the window and see all the cardboard makeshift houses that we pass by. Those must be people that are trying their best to survive out there. Why can't the Bureau take care of them? I'm sure they have the resources and funding to take care of the people who live out in the fringe. They are rich enough to establish experiments in other places so why not help the people of the fringe?

Chase and I sit in silence. The hum of the car's engine and the tires on the gravel are the only sounds we hear. "Why are there so many people here?" I ask more to myself than to the people in the car.

"The Purity wars, it has left many people here, most of the people who saw the war already passed, this is the result of their children," Chase responds. My heart goes out to them, shouldn't they have been included in the experiment, too?

"Then why weren't they included in the experiment?" I ask Chase. He looks forward not looking at me.

"I don't know, you'll have to ask David, he's the one in charge." Chase replies. I nod. I trust him without question again. I let out a sigh. I look out the window again and see that we are approaching a building that looks like a warehouse. I look at the building in awe of how big the place is. We are moving closer towards the building and I can see that there are empty lots. If there are so many empty lots why not use it to build the people of the fringe a home? But then again, seeing how violent they are is quite scary so maybe it is best to keep them at bay.

"Is this…?" I trail off. The building is impressive but it also looks pretty run down on the outside. I wonder what it looks like on the inside.

"This used to be an airport." The woman says parking into a spot. I shake the little boy awake and he rubs his sleepy eyes. "Hey there Cameron, did you have a nice nap?" The woman asks the little boy. I raise an eyebrow at her. "He was also in your city," She says. I look at her confused. "He was kidnapped a while ago, I'm glad you guys found him, well he found you." She says.

"How does this lady know my name?" He asks me.

"I don't know, but you'll be safe here, I promise." I say to him. "And there will be plenty of delicious food for you to eat." I add and he smiles. Now he's practically jumping up and down on my lap. I laugh and I hear Chase let out a chuckle, too. "Hold on Cameron, you'll be out soon," I say. I unbuckle the seatbelt and he slides off of my lap.

"Let's go and explore!" The little boy shouts with excitement.

"Alright but you have to hold my hand, okay?" Chase says extending his big hand to Cameron. The little boy gladly takes Chase's hand and we all get out of the van. I follow the woman and chase into the building. I look at the big letters. It seems to be the name of the building. It reads, "O'Hare International Airport". Whoa, this place was an airport?

The doors open and we walk in. The first thing I see are the check in points. The metal like counters is empty and there's this big space in the middle. I wonder what that is for. Then I see this black thing and some black flaps that seem to go somewhere. It must be where people put their luggage and the person behind the counter puts it onto the black thing and the suitcase goes somewhere on that black thing.

"This place was an a-" Chase begins talking but I interrupt him.

"An airport, I know." I say pointing at the different pictures of airplanes that are advertising possibly the different airlines. There is one that's called Southwest, and another one called Hawaiian airlines. Those are the ones that I have seen so far, but I'm sure there are more than just two different airlines.

"Right, sorry. I just feel like I need to explain everything." Chase says to me. He gives me a sheepish smile. Does he like me, too? I flashback to that time when he was looking at me in a strange way, and how he always took care of me, especially when I had a bullet wound. He was the only person there so it makes sense that he would help, if he didn't I would have died out there. Thanks to him that bullet wound healed properly without any complications.

The two of us break our gaze when we hear a small little laugh coming out of Cameron. "Care to share what's so funny Cameron?" The woman asks looking over her shoulder. The little boy is covering his mouth and shaking his head. Chase and I know why he's laughing. I look down avoiding any eye contact, and trying to hide my blush. "Ahh, do you think these two here, like each other?" The woman asks walking backwards now. I can see Cameron nodding with a huge smile on his face from my peripheral vision.

We continue walking and we have to pass this metal detector. It was like the shape of a door way with revolving doors. I had to take off my jacket, the gun and the knife I had in my boot. After that I have to take off the boots as well. After I made sure that any kind of metal was not on my body I step into the cylinder thing and follow the image that was provided on the wall. I raise my arms over my head and let it scan for whatever it is trying to detect.

After that was over I make my way out to the other side and grab my things. I put on my boots and the woman actually says that she needs to take my weapons. "You're going to be safe; you aren't going to be needing them." She explains. She's right.

"Wait, you haven't even introduced yourself to me," I say to her.

"Oh I am so sorry, my name is Deliah." She says extending her hand to me. I take it. I know I don't need to introduce myself to her at all. She already knows my name, and probably my full name.

"So how it is that Chase knows about everything?" I ask her.

"He's from the Bureau, he wanted to be in the experiment." Deliah explains.

"Why would he want to be in the experiment?" I ask her.

"I think you should ask him that." She replies. I look at Chase and see that he's putting his shoes back on. Cameron comes running to us. He gives me a hug and I lift him up, but have to put him back down soon. I haven't realized how much of my strength has left me. I must look like a stick compared to Deliah, even Cameron looks a bit malnourished, just a bit, we gave him most of the food. Chase walks over with his jacket over his shoulder and a hand in his pants pocket. I feel my heart beating a bit faster again. I look away and I hear Cameron giggling again.

"Alright, let's go in." He says smiling at me. I smile at him, too. His smile is so nice, and his teeth are so straight. Mine are too but his are perfect.

I follow Deliah into the building and see that there are multiple rooms. She gives me and Cameron a tour of the place. It's as big as the rest of the airport. The hallways were wide enough to have four people walking in a horizontal line. After the tour and being introduced to some people I noticed that some of the people in this building were wearing green jumpsuits, and they were doing menial work. I also see some people in lab coats doing lab work or research. Some of the people doing the menial work seem to be about my age or even younger.

I know there are people who need to do this type of work but the youngest I have seen so far is at least thirteen. Someone that young shouldn't be working at all. "You're Alyssa, right?" I hear someone say. I turn around and find a man with dark skin, dark hair and rich brown eyes looking at me.

"Yeah I'm Alyssa," I respond to his question. How is it that everyone knows me? They must be overseeing the experiment. That must be how they know my name. Amar and I would have never met. Amar was supposedly dead by the time I came into Dauntless.

"I've heard so much about you from Eric," He says.

"Eric?" I ask him. Why would Eric talk about me.

"Let's just say he had a thing for you." Amar tells me. He walks off to whatever he has to do.

_Eric, having a thing for me? No way._ I think. I return my attention back to the group. I shake the thought of Eric having feelings for me and continue with the tour with Deliah. After the awkward tour was over Deliah shows me my room. I see that there's a cot and a desk and what I need in a room. "Is there a shower anywhere?" I ask her.

"Yes it's that door by the desk." She says pointing to the wooden door. I thank her and she closes the door to my room. I open the door to the bathroom and find a shower with curtains a toilet and of course a sink. I look down at my soiled clothes and remember that I don't have any extra clothing with me. I walk out of the bathroom and into the room. I walk to the wardrobe and see the clothes that I am used to wearing in there._ I guess they have been waiting for me._ I think as I take out a blank tank top and a pair of black pants and undergarments.

I walk back to the bathroom and turn the water on. I wait for it to be nice and warm before stepping into the shower. I let the water run down my skin and my oily hair. The water feels so nice against my soiled skin and hair. I let it wash away the dirt and I gently clean where the bullet wound is. Sometimes the slightest touch still causes some pain.

After the long shower I wrap my hair in a towel and dry myself as I put the clean clothes on. It feels so nice to be clean again. The clothes are a bit big on me, especially the pants. I grab a belt from the wardrobe and put it on with ease. I hear a knock on my door. I take the towel off and open the door. It's Chase. He also washed up.

"Hey, how was your first shower after a long time?" I ask him. He chuckles and brushes the stray strand of hair away from his eyes.

"It was refreshing, yours?" He asks me with a playful glint in his eyes.

"Same." I reply with a smile.

"Are you going to let me in?" He asks.

"Oh, sorry," I say letting him in. He walks in and sits on the cot. The cot sinks a little due to his weight. "So, let's talk about something." He says. I am already starting to feel nervous. I know what he wants to talk about.

"Okay, I might as well just say it." I say. I sit down across from him on the chair. "I do like you, like more than a friend." I say as if I am some typical teenage girl would say. I am still a teenager.

He nods. I have no idea what he's going to say. He hasn't given much away since our time together out in the fringe. "I have feelings for you, too." He says in response to my poor confession. His is way better. He chose his words carefully unlike me. _Ugh, I'm such an idiot_. I think as I listen to what he has to say. "I have had feelings for you since I saw you," He says to me. "You were the nurse who helped me," He says to me. I look at him and he looks at me. "You were a new member so you didn't really know me yet, but I had to ask your friend, Samantha about you. I just fell head over heels for you then." He confesses. I can't help but feel myself blushing. "Alyssa, you're a beautiful girl, brave, smart, kind, and compassionate." He says looking straight into my eyes. Okay now I know I am blushing hard.

I look away, I don't have that many things to say about him. I wish I did. "I don't know much about you Chase, but all I know is that I trust you. For some reason I trust you without questioning it. I feel like you're the only person I can trust in this old airport." I say to him. I mean it. I trust only him. We haven't met that many people that are in the Bureau but I think Chase is the only person that I can trust. "Besides that you're quite humorous, and you took care of me, and Cameron." I say smiling. He was always offering to give me extra but I always denied it, not wanting him to faint on us. "You also respect me, and I like that." I add.

My heart is literally pounding, my palms are sweating. We finally had time to talk about this. "Do you think you're ready to take the next step?" He asks me. I look into his eyes and see that he means it, he really wants to take the next step, but he's also willing to wait for my decision. I bite my lip, unsure of what to say.

"I don't know, I know I said that I have feelings for you, but I don't know much about you," I say to him.

"You're right," He says nodding, agreeing with me. I do want to say yes, but I want to get to know this person more before diving into a relationship with him. "Let's start from the beginning," He says. I smile and nod. I sit next to him on the cot. "I was born on January 21st. My parents were living in the fringe. The people from the Bureau occasionally come out and seek out people to work in the Bureau. They chose me when I was just fourteen." He continues with his story. "I chose to go into the experiment a year after being with the Bureau. They didn't give me the memory serum so I remember everything about my life in the fringe."

_That's how he knew the place so well._ I think. He continues and mentions that he was put into the Candor faction when he took the aptitude test at the Bureau. Then he took it again a year after and he chose Dauntless. He made sure that his aptitude test will show up as Dauntless. He was careful to not show his Divergence but the tester, already knew he was. He went through the training with Eric and Tobias. Chase was lucky to see a glimpse of Eric before he turned into that cold hearted monster that I saw once I entered the Dauntless compound.

We stop talking when we hear a knock on the door. I go answer it and see that it is Deliah. "I'm sure you're starving, let's go eat dinner." She says. I smile and tell Chase about dinner. He shoots up and nearly bolts out the door. Deliah and I both laugh and he asks why we're laughing.

"You nearly ran me over," I say to him.

"I'm sorry, I'm hungry." He says putting his hand on his stomach. Deliah and I laugh again as we continue making our way to the dining room.


End file.
